That's awesome Larry, I'm glad that MoI is being useful for you!

Really the programming environment is kind of a side effect - it's helpful for MoI's own development to have a malleable environment to work with.

- Michael

An example of the use of this script. First I created a dimensioned drawing of the part I wanted to make, but noted that dimensions alone are not very helpful when it comes to cutting the rounded sides of the opening using a manual milling machine:



So I added circles to represent the 3/8" end mill I would use to cut an interpolation of the rounded sides:



After running the script (& selecting the option to create points for illustration), points for the part origin on the mill and center points of the cuts are shown:



The resulting coordinates for the cuts to be made, exported to a text file:

0.825,0.660
0.959,0.581
1.105,0.522
1.257,0.487
1.412,0.475
1.568,0.487
1.720,0.522
1.866,0.581
2.000,0.660
2.000,2.340
1.866,2.419
1.720,2.478
1.568,2.513
1.413,2.525
1.257,2.513
1.105,2.478
0.959,2.419
0.825,2.340

The coordinates made it easy to cut the rounded sides which will then be cleaned up with a file:



--Larry

> Really the programming environment is kind of a side effect - it's helpful for MoI's own development to have a malleable environment to work with.

Richard Stallman might have said something like that in response to a compliment on Emacs, but look at how integral the programming environment is to Emacs, and hence what Emacs has become (& spawned)! No, you've created something remarkable & it is a pleasure to use.

--Larry

Hi Larry -

Good to see a fellow machinist on the forum.

You can bypass the effort of placing the circles with this method:

Use the Offset tool to create a new curve that is offset (either inside or outside as required) 1/2 the diameter of the endmill.

Run Max's PointsOnCurve script available here:
http://moi.maxsm.net/files/

The script allows you to pick the distance between points and copy their coordinates to the clipboard. You even have the option to not place points on straight lines.

I assume the script could be edited to show an extra decimal place so you have one-thou resolution.

Ed Ferguson

Hi Ed,

Thanks much for the suggestion and illustrating the alternative approach! Simpler is often better, but the exercise was certainly worthwhile to learn something about writing a script for MoI.

--Larry