open source CAM

[Dan Falck <dfalck-at-sprynet.com>]

I hope that my thoughts don't sound too strange for the list....
Every week, I usually call Ray and talk to him for about an hour, about EMC 
and CAD/CAM related things.  This week we were discussing probing, open 
source vs MS, Tcl/Tk windows terminals, and open source CAM programming.  I 
will have to admit, I can't program source and therefore, have to sit on 
the sidelines.  But,  I do like to stir things up to generate interest in 
topics.  So,  here goes another session of stirring the soup....

  In the last year, I have seen more EMC developement with the open source 
world than I would have expected in my wildest dreams.  Open source truly 
is the right model for this application.  Who would have thought,one year 
ago, that we would have a controller that rivals and even surpasses the 
commercial systems ?  With that in mind, I know that things could be taken 
to another level.  There has been a lot of talk on the "other" list 
(CAD/CAM/EDM/DRO) about conversational programming, being able to make G 
code right from DXF files etc.  Currently, there is an open source effort 
at www.opencascade.org and www.opencascade.com that is building the 
framework for opensource CAD/CAM.  Right now there are only a couple demos 
using the opencascade libraries, but they are encouraging.  My thoughts are 
that the opencascade libraries could be used in the EMC backplot program to 
create a small CAM program to go along with EMC.  It would be good to be 
able to hit a button and be able to switch between "backplot" mode and CAM 
mode on a screen that is independent of the EMC controller window. Ray and 
I have discussed this a little and we thought that it would be good to 
bring this up so that programmers could look at this and comment.  I know 
that the guys at NIST are doing great work on the controller, and I 
wouldn't want to divert their attention away from what they are 
doing.  Therefore, I am making an appeal to the programmers on this list to 
give me some feedback about how to go about getting an open source CAM 
program built.

Thanks,
Dan