is there 5 axis

[sliptonic]

I'm working on 5-axis algorithms.

I made an inverse kinematics solver for 5-axis (and n-axis) machines and cutting algorithms. My focus has been core algorithms - nothing's been turned into a FreeCAD workbench yet. I would welcome help on workbench-ifying this.

I'm happy to help on the workbench side of things. Feel free to ping me here, PM, or catch me on the gitter channel.

[adamLange]

I'm doing what I can to make my 5-axis CAM code accessible. I actually have adaptive pocketing working pretty well now. My prototyping repository is now available on GitHub: https://github.com/adamLange/HackerCAD/.

[sliptonic]

Trying to get your stuff running but have hit a snag getting Python-OCC to recognize Python3 on my linux mint machine.
Are there packages somewhere? Do you use the conda build?

[adamLange]

@sliptonic I've done this in the past to make pythonocc-core build with python3:

cmake -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 ..

You wouldn't need to compile pythonocc-core to run the examples in HackerCAD. You should be able to use the conda package. https://anaconda.org/pythonocc/pythonocc-core

I've always compiled pythonocc-core from scratch to make sure that both FreeCAD and pythonocc link to the same opencascade library because I sometimes use: the FreeCAD functions Part.__fromPythonOCC__ and Part.__toPythonOCC__.

[Thorhian]

I'm doing what I can to make my 5-axis CAM code accessible. I actually have adaptive pocketing working pretty well now. My prototyping repository is now available on GitHub: https://github.com/adamLange/HackerCAD/.

If I get the time I’m totally going to try and run your stuff. This is awesome. I find it funny that we have a 2D adaptive strategy, and you are working 5D Adaptive pocketing, but unfortunately nobody else seems to be working on 3D Adaptive tool paths to my knowledge. Man if only school wasn’t eating so much of my time (I am learning a lot though, so I’ll be better prepared to contribute in the future). Gotta get my mill running too lol.

[Muzzer]

I suspect you may shortly see a horde of distraught PocketNC users (https://pocketnc.com/) heading this way shortly looking for 5 axis CAM, as the move by AD has rather blown a hole in their product.

I tried pointing this out to them recently but I just got some rot about being able to get a "free trial licence for Fusion", as if this was some special deal. I wonder what they plan to do, as without a 5 axis CAM option at sensible prices, their business case goes away.

My recently finished 4th axis is now sitting on the shelf gathering dust. The actual features offered in the paid for version of Fusion and their "extensions" is as clear as mud. However, I get the strong feeling Fusion isn't going to be the solution.

I'm not a s/w developer, so there's not a lot I can offer personally but I'm happy to try stuff out if it helps to bring FreeCAD along.

[jmaustpc]

welcome to FreeCAD!

I suspect you may shortly see a horde of distraught PocketNC users

Yes we know, and we have a wave of new users!

Ping

Sliptonic told us about PocketNC a few days ago.

I will leave any intelligent response to him and others who are informed in these matters!

Jim

[sliptonic]

I suspect you may shortly see a horde of distraught PocketNC users (https://pocketnc.com/) heading this way shortly looking for 5 axis CAM, as the move by AD has rather blown a hole in their product.

We've seen them. Not exactly a 'horde' but a few. PocketNC's primary market is educational users who were unaffected by the change. Their hobbyist/diy users, on the other hand, were very much affected.

My recently finished 4th axis is now sitting on the shelf gathering dust. The actual features offered in the paid for version of Fusion and their "extensions" is as clear as mud. However, I get the strong feeling Fusion isn't going to be the solution.

People mean different things when referring to 5 axis. I like to distinguish between 3+2 and continuous 5 axis.
3+2 is 3 axis milling that intermittently changes the part orientation by rotating it around the A or B axis. Path has some functionality for this now.

Continuous 5 axis is moving the cutter in all five axes at the same time. We don't have a solution for this at this time.

I'm not a s/w developer, so there's not a lot I can offer personally but I'm happy to try stuff out if it helps to bring FreeCAD along.

Not true. You can support the project or developers financially. If you're a PocketNC customer, put pressure on them to do the same.
You can contribute to the project in many other ways like supporting users, writing wikis, testing and commenting on Pull Requests, filing bug reports, etc. If you're bi-lingual, you can help with translation. If you're a lawyer, there's work to be done on intellectual property. If you're an artist, there's work to be done on icons and images. If you can edit video, make a tutorial. In fact, regardless of your talents, there's probably a place where you can help.

At the moment, you have a tiny little '1' next to your name indicating you've posted to this forum exactly one time. What will you do next?

[Muzzer]

Next thing is to make my second ever post!

I didn't realise that educational users were exempt from these draconian restrictions. Are you certain?

When I say 4th axis, I mean simultaneous ("continuous" in your parlance) 4 axis operation, rather than "just" indexed 4th axis. 5th axis operation in any form isn't likely to happen with me any time soon. Is 4th axis continuous operation reasonably stable now?

I can test, report and comment. I have 2 three axis machines (Bridgeport and Shizuok) and the aforementioned 4th axis. The Shiz has Centroid Acorn, which seems to have a Freecad post processor. That's a good start....

[chrisb]

This is the first time I see that the centroid postprocessor is used. It was among the first postprocessors and much has been changed since then, so expect that it may need some fixing here and there.