Tools for CNC Programmers

SketchNC provides tools for quick and easy conversion of a drawing to G-Code. This software is currently in BETA status, but is free to use during its development process.  Please feel free to provide feedback about any problems you find or suggestions for new features or improvements.

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SketchNC v1.0.32 Beta Release Notes
July 8, 2023

Lots of bug fixes and improvements.

Added support for VBScripting.
- Added a script editor window that can be accessed from the "File" menu. The script editor features syntax coloring and a dropdown list of all SketchNC provided subs and functions.
- The scripting feature is still a work in progress, not all functions are hooked up yet.

Updated the "Draw" menu. Grouped the "Point", "Line", "Rectangle", "Circle" and "Arc" tools into sub-menus in order to shorten the length of the menu.

Created new tools for drawing dimensions. There is a new sub-menu under the "Draw" menu called "Dimension".
- Leader Arrow. Draws a dimension leader, a line with an arrow on one end.
- Horizontal dimension. Draws a dimension between two "X" points.
- Vertical dimension. Draws a dimension between two "Y" points.
- Parallel dimension. Draws a dimension parallel to the two selected points.
- Radius dimension. Draws a radius dimension of the selected arc or circle.
- Diameter dimension. Draws a diameter dimension of the selected arc or circle.
- Angle dimension. Draws an angle dimension between two selected points.

Added toolbar buttons for the "Draw rectangle from ends", "Draw straight slot" and "Draw circular slot" tools.

Added new selection tools:
"Select Intersecting" - This tool allows you to select entities and will then select any entities that intersect with them.
"Select Open Ended" - This tool will select entities that are not connected to another entity on at least one end.

Created a new chain direction tool called "Unify chain directions". This tool will allow you to specify the desired direction (CW or CCW) of the selected closed chains.

Updated the layer settings. The layer machining settings are now divided into two tabs. The first tab is the usual machining settings, while the second tab has a text box that you can use to specifiy code to be inserted into your NC program in place of a point object. This means you can now insert drilling canned cycles or other code at point locations. This code is part of the layer settings and will be saved as part of the drawing file.

Made improvements to the geometry split tool:
Updated the method used to perform the geometry splitting. The new method is much faster and won't create a bunch of invalid and/or duplicate entities.
It will now handle cases where circles or arcs overlap each other.
These code improvements will also improve the results from the offsetting tool.

Improved the raster fill tool, reduced the number of inverted scan lines that are created.

Updated the offset tool.
Offsetting a single entity is much faster now.
The improved geometry splitting tool will help to also improve the speed of the offset.

Updated the "Move" command. Added a command option "M" that will set the "Move From" point to the middle of the selection set.

Updated the "Extend" command:
This command now updates the entity info while the command is active, showing the new length while selecting a new point.
Added the command option "L" that lets you specify the new entity length.

Fixed a bug in the V-carve toolpath creation. The bug was causing the tool to create incomplete toolpaths.

The G-Code setup now allows you to save the current settings as default. A new menu item on the settings window that will save the current settings to the default settings file.

Added checking for a default G-Code settings file on startup. If the file is present, SketchNC will load the settings on startup.

Added saving the work zero location as part of the project file.

The font selection window will now stay on top of other windows when displayed. This makes it easier to select a font when using the text drawing tool.

Fixed a bug in the "isPointOnArc" function. This function was not checking that the input point was within the sweep of the arc.

Fixed a bug in the "GetClosestDistA" function. This function was also not checking that the input point was within the sweep of the arc. This fix also improves the entity picking.



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SketchNC v1.0.29 Beta Release Notes
January 14, 2023

Added a new option to the "Polygon" command. The new option "L" allows you to specify the desired length of the polygon sides.

The "Draw circular slot" command was creating incorrect geometry for certain combinations of command options. This is fixed.

The "Bounding Rectangle" command has a new option "H". When entered, this option will find the orientation of a rectangle that has the smallest possible area. The command will display the angle and area of the resulting rectangle.




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SketchNC v1.0.27 Beta Release Notes
June 5, 2020

Added a new tab to the preferences dialog labeled "Viewport". This was to separate the viewport settings from the drawing command settings.

Added a setting to the "Drawing" tab of the preferences dialog called "Group New Geometry". When this setting is enabled SketchNC will automatically group new geometry that is created by the shape commands such as rectangle or polygon.

Added a menu strip to the preferences dialog with options to import and export the preferences settings.

Various bug fixes.


 

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SketchNC Beta version 26 Release Notes:
May 24, 2020

Fixed a bug in the 3Dconnexion device setup. Setting an axis to one of the device rotation axes did not work.

Improved the graphics performance. When the viewport was zoomed way in the response got really slow, this is fixed.

Updated the rectangle from center command. You can now specify a width and height when drawing a rectangle from its center point.

Added a menu option to clear the list of recent files.
 

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SketchNC Beta version 25 Release Notes:
May 19, 2020

Added support for 3Dconnexion devices.

Hooked up the 3Dconnexion device settings menu option under the "Edit" menu. This menu opens the device configuration dialog where you can adjust the settings for your device.
 

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SketchNC Beta version 24 Release Notes:
May 16, 2020

Updated the G-Code output settings dialog. The header and footer text are now colorized to match the NC program text.

Added a menu strip to the G-Code output settings dialog with options to import and export the G-Code output settings.

The color picker will now remember the custom colors.

Made a few improvements to the offsetting tool.

Made a few improvements to the pocketing tool.

Various bug fixes.



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SketchNC Beta version 23 release notes:

May 11, 2020

Updated the help file.  The help file is now available online, click here to view it.

Combined the simple text and outline text tools into a single text command.

Added a font manager window for selecting font folders and for converting True Type fonts to CHR fonts. This can be opened via the File menu.

Enabled opening files by dragging and dropping them onto the SketchNC window.

Various bug fixes.
 

SketchNC features:

Supports reading native SketchNC files, DXF files and NC G-Code files. Supports copy and pasting directly from StickFont. Supports creating G-Code programs for 2D and 2.5D applications. Easily create text for engraving. Create pocketing tool paths. Create V-Carve tool paths. Create raster tool paths.

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