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 resurrecting the old APT processor here: [Aptos]

It seems that this project has inspired someone to write a viewer for APT (VAPT) and it can be found here: [Vapt]
(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

(You might want to create an ~/aptos directory to contain the three following directories:)

Notes on installing apt360

Build Stuff

Install apt360:
./configure, make, sudo make install
Notes, problems, comments:
Ubuntu 7.10: There are some problems - maybe related to the stock terminal that comes with it. The configure and make scripts are getting mangled.

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

Install vapt:
vapt has a python installer, so, within the vapt directory:
sudo python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

then go inside the apt360 directory and create a symbolic link to the directory in which vapt resides.
(Maybe something like this: ln -s ~/aptos/vapt-0.2.6/ ~/aptos/apt360-1.0.2/ )

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, see image) and outputs CL instructions to the terminal screen (see image).
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)
Though 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 cutter location (CL) instructions that can be viewed with Vapt
- to view the cutter location (CL) information you can use Vapt (read on)

Editing example *.apt source file