Hi guys, I'm getting my first 3D printer in a few weeks hopefully. It's an Eventorbot, which was a kickstarter project. It's an open source design, but I think he's also planning on selling them after he gets all his orders filled.
Anyway, I know everybody "likes" STL files because they are easily shared and you don't need expensive software to generate them or read them, but I would eventually like to see someone come up with some "pro-sumer" slicing programs for solid file types, like DXF, IGES, STEP, etc. Plugins for Solidworks or Inventor would be even neater. Also, The current controllers would have to improve to support more g-code commands, but I figure that's what Mach3 is for :D.
When I do get my printer up and running I'm going to attempt to write an AutoLisp command that will slice a solid in autocad and output a .dxf file for each layer. That's probably easier said than done tho. :( There is also a command in Inventor that lets you output a face to a dxf file and there is probably a way to automate that, but that will require lots of research on my part.
Just some thoughts...
Anyway, I know everybody "likes" STL files because they are easily shared and you don't need expensive software to generate them or read them, but I would eventually like to see someone come up with some "pro-sumer" slicing programs for solid file types, like DXF, IGES, STEP, etc. Plugins for Solidworks or Inventor would be even neater. Also, The current controllers would have to improve to support more g-code commands, but I figure that's what Mach3 is for :D.
When I do get my printer up and running I'm going to attempt to write an AutoLisp command that will slice a solid in autocad and output a .dxf file for each layer. That's probably easier said than done tho. :( There is also a command in Inventor that lets you output a face to a dxf file and there is probably a way to automate that, but that will require lots of research on my part.
Just some thoughts...