A CAM system for LinuxCNC

Daniel Falck has been looking at an open source CAM program named Apt360

"Around 1999 or 2000, I learned that there was a computer language named Apt (automatic programming tool) that was the basis for most modern CAM systems. I also found out that there was source code available for this system. But, alas, the source was only available for VAX systems, which I had no access to. Well, fast forward to 2006, and the aptos project...." ramblings from DF- more to come on this story

the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy might have said:

APT programming language is a high-level computer programming language used to generate instructions for numerically controlled machine tools. The name is derived from the acronym for Automatically Programmed Tool.

Links

I ran across a cool project that is dedicated to resurecting the old APT processor here:

URL for project: http://aptos.sourceforge.net/

It seems that this project has inspired someone to write a viewer for APT (VAPT) and it can be found here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85596

(Note: the latest version of vapt never got uploaded to this page we will direct you to a later version when we get it up on the aptos project page)

This isn't a web link but, we have been hanging out in the freenode #cam channel (probably used to be dedicated to web cameras or something else : )

I was able to get both projects to run on Ubuntu Dapper and have been pretty pleased with what they can do

Get Stuff

Notes on installing apt360:

1 download and untar apt360 from here: http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=85596
2 download and untar postp from the same page
3 fulfill these dependancies by using apt-get or synaptic
- libf2c
- bison
- flex
- dxflib see http://www.ribbonsoft.com/dxflib_downloads.html (not necessary to use apt360 -just for 'posting' dxf files)

Notes on installing vapt:

python-dev (development version of python)

For Ubuntu 7.10, $sudo apt-get install python-dev

pyopengl (some problems for python-opengl-togl seems to be broken in Ubuntu 7.10)
vapt- which you can find at the aptos sourceforge project page:

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85596&package_id=246636&release_id=541443

Build Stuff

install apt360 "./configure, ./make, ./make install" (there are some problems with ubuntu7.10-maybe related to the stock terminal that comes with it. The configure and make scripts are getting mangled)

postp has a python installer within postp directory, sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

install vapt like this: within vapt directory, sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

get inside the apt360 directory and create a symbolic link to the directory in which vapt resides

Now, on to the fun part....

Run Stuff

apt360(aka:apt)

apt360 is a traditional Unix command line based tool
It takes input from a file with apt instructions (*.apt) and outputs CL instructions to the terminal screen,
In the .apt file, directives can be added to produce extra output, like gcode and or dxf files
such directives can produce a .tap (gcode) or .dxf file (dxf not working 2007 02 10)
NB: tho apt360 is the project name and the folder name, 'apt' is the command

usage:
- "apt /path-to-your-apt360-dir/examples/test.apt"
- could produce "test.apt" or "test.dxf" (depending on the post processor directive(s) in 'test.apt' )
- it also produces a stream of CL instructions that can be viewed with Vapt
- to view the CL information you can use Vapt (read on)