Is there a nice graphic gcode editor?

[Dolf Veenvliet]

I'm trying to do some more "advanced" (maybe strange is a better word) prints... and though makerware gets me really close to what I want... it's just not quite there... but it's the closest I got after trying a bunch of slicers. So maybe I need to edit my gcode manually (remove some moves mostly).

I found a real nice and simple online gcode viewer here: http://gcode.ws/

And that made me think... is there a simple graphic gcode editor?

I looked around and found a bunch of "cnc editors"... some of which seemed useful.

Is there something you are using that works nice? Any recommendations? Preferably open source...

[kyo]

What do you mean by 'graphic editor'? gcode is by its very nature text based.. and not all that complicated.

[Dolf Veenvliet]

Hi,

Yes... I know... lots of things are text based, but that doesn't always mean you want to edit them as text... take svg... I'd much rather edit an svg file in inkscape for instance, than the text itself.

As an example I found: http://www.predator-software.com/predator_cnc_editor_software.htm

And: http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCGWizardE.html

I was hoping someone here would have experience with tools like this and could perhaps recommend one.

[Joseph Chiu]

Have you tried Repetier host?  It has a gcode editor mode, and has gcode path visualization.  I think it's mostly pointless for trying to edit a sliced object, but it could be helpful for fine tuning start/end gcode, and to possibly tweak the gcode to, say, introduce some extra action at a certain spot in the build (like mechanically triggering an insert to be dropped in or something).

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[Dolf Veenvliet]

Thanks Joseph,

I tried it... nice! But... not what I was hoping for... It is still a program that just allows you to edit the code. In stead I was hoping for something that allows for editing the path visualisation. Say just like an svg editor for instance. Grab a node and drag it to another position, or remove it... whatever. For me as a visual artist that would be a lot more intuitive than editing the code as text.

[joe...@gmail.com]

Yeah, that is what I figured. Unless you intend to use the 3d printer like a plotter to draw lines, I suspect you will have a very hard time 'drawing' your prints by specifying extruder paths.

-- Sent from my HP TouchPad

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On Oct 1, 2013 12:43 AM, Dolf Veenvliet <mac...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Joseph,

I tried it... nice! But... not what I was hoping for... It is still a program that just allows you to edit the code. In stead I was hoping for something that allows for editing the path visualisation. Say just like an svg editor for instance. Grab a node and drag it to another position, or remove it... whatever. For me as a visual artist that would be a lot more intuitive than editing the code as text.

[macouno]

Sure... I don't want to draw the paths for the entire print... I'm just looking to modify/clean the gcode generated by makerware... it's very close to what I want already... For instance here (in the image)... This is almost precisely what I want... I just want to remove the bits with all the parallel lines in brown and move a few other points around (maybe smoothe a couple of paths out). There is no slicer that I can find that generates exactly what I want... so... I was thinking a visual gcode editor would be what I want.... Actually... this analyzer I found (gcode.ws) looks exactly like what I'd love an editor to look like... Very simple!

Of course I can do this in the code... but for me personally that's very "un-natural"... maybe I'm not the only one ;)

[Gregory Sullivan]

http://www.grzsoftware.com/cutviewer/ it has a 30 day trial and it looks like it does stl nativly too now. I have used it for a hobby (4axis) servo mill and believe it does plasma. And if I remember correctly you can create a custom post processor. one thing to remember is if the basic acceration settings are not correct then no slicer will work well. I'm in single digits on max change mm/s xyz (a&b steppers are 21mm/s max change) and I think 1050 for max acceleration xy and I think z is still 150(stock)

[DavidL]

NCPlot is one of the best g-code editors for CNC machine tools.  I have used it for years.  I do not know if it would work for your needs but it is free to try.

On Monday, September 30, 2013 7:40:14 AM UTC-4, macouno wrote:

[Dan Newman]

On 14 Oct 2013 , at 5:28 PM, DavidL wrote:

> NCPlot is one of the best g-code editors for CNC machine tools. I have
> used it for years. I do not know if it would work for your needs but it is
> free to try.

I'm quite curious to learn if makerbot gcode works well with NCPlot. NCPlot
will need to be tolerant of gcode syntax errors, but if it can be then it
would be nice to know. (The DIY 3D printing community plays a bit loose
with gcode syntax at times.)

Dan