I Revived 3-Axis CNC Mill G-Code Simulator (opens in new tab)

Everything about how you move that tool through the work matters. Materials, workholding, spindle speeds, tooling, tooling coatings, feed rates, plunge speeds, all of these things need to be worked out and they all change when you swap a tool or a part etc. Speeds and feeds are dynamic, you need to learn about conventional-vs-climb milling, you'll need to know about cutter geometries and the materials the cutters are made of, when and how to deploy coolant, the list just never ends.

GCODE is, by far, the easy part for a programmer. It's a very simple language that hasn't changed much in the past several decades. "Knowing machining" is that tougher hill to climb.

My recommendation? Check your local community colleges/trade schools! I took a couple semesters of machining classes as a 40-something grown-ass dude and I learned a huge amount of stuff that would have been expensive or dangerous to learn by trying. You'll get hands-on access to big machines with someone over your shoulder helping to make sure you keep your limbs attached to your body.

They're weak and imprecise by the standards of CNC machines but if you're only looking to learn a bit and cut foam? That's a low price.

Perhaps:

https://www.humanmade.org/

For 2.5D there are several engraver options with the inkscape mightyscape plugins (scorchworks etc.)

YMMV with the island-routing and surface probing routines:

https://github.com/pcb2gcode/pcb2gcode.git

https://github.com/pcb2gcode/pcb2gcodeGUI.git

Also, we are currently evaluating: viaconstructor, inkcut, GCAM ( https://github.com/blinkenlight/GCAM.git )

If you want 3D contouring operations, than you could also try:

git://pycam.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/pycam/pycam

And note, if you patch CAMotics to compile on ubuntu 24.04.x it still has a number of Qt5 GUI problems (not entirely unexpected with Qt impact on LTS programs.)

There are also direct gcode generator macros that support the LinuxCNC/emc language extensions. This is the most accurate methodology for turning and milling ops.

Best of luck, =3

- Solvespace --- limited to 2D last I checked

- FreeCAD has a workbench for CAM/toolpath generation

- BlenderCAM is a plug-in for Blender which is well-regarded, and together w/ CADsketcher/BlenderCAD works well for some folks

- Kiri:Moto

- pyCAM --- a venerable option, it worked well ages ago when I used my son's gaming computer to make toolpaths.

Rather rough (possibly outdated) list at: https://old.reddit.com/r/shapeoko/wiki/cam

https://bengler.no/grbl

which means:

- no loops

- no branching

- no variables

One work-around for that is:

https://github.com/NRSoft/GSharp

(I took a very different approach in my project linked elsethread)

Also, how are tool definitions to be handled? Each program seems to have their own approach, though some will place the tool description in comments. CutViewer is notable for doing this, and is the example I have been following in:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

(which is quite a different project)

EDIT: Note that the comment system which Cutviewer uses seems to be something of a de facto standard --- Carbide Create uses this same scheme.

For the light version maybe Solvespace?

I'm still amazed by Dune 3D: https://dune3d.org/ where the Github page has the footnote:

>I ended up directly using solvespace's solver instead of the suggested wrapper code since it didn't expose all of the features I needed. I also had to patch the solver to make it sufficiently fast for the kinds of equations I was generating by symbolically solving equations where applicable.

If that does not help, please share the g-code...