I recently found a very usefull tool on Thingiverse that lets you check your Gcode file before sending it to the printer.
So I decided to give it a try...
24/02/2014
Check your Gcode before to print
By Anar on 24/02/2014, 12:06 - Software
Tag - G-code
14/11/2011
Do you fill like I do ?
By Anar on 14/11/2011, 09:53 - Software
Now that you understand what drawing with Gcode really means, you know that only vectors can be turned into stroke paths.
In a vector graphic editor such as Inkscape you can fill a closed path, but that filling will only exist on your screen.
Even if you tell Inkscape to fill in some path, you will only get the path's outline plotted when converted into Gcode instructions. That's because only the outline is a path but the filled area isn't.
So if we want our filled areas to be pen-plotted, we must first find a way to convert them into stroke paths.
Let's see how...
25/10/2011
Drawing with Gcode
By Anar on 25/10/2011, 10:09 - Software
It took me a lot of time, web searches, trials and errors to find a way to convert a bitmap image into a nice Gcode tool path.
I have tried many things including extruding a greyscale image into a 3D mesh and then extract its first slice using Axon/Skeinforge.
But this method, like many others, produced very poor results...
...until I found out there is a pen-plotter project for the Makerbot called "Unicorn".
13/04/2011
Just magic !
By Anar on 13/04/2011, 14:27 - Software
Doing searches on the web, I found that little python script.
It's aimed to print lampshades from grayscale images on a Makerbot.
If it works on a Makerbot it should also work on a Rapman. So let's try that...