[Bf-committers] Blender CNC/CAM addition

[Matthias for Blender]

So you model for days and weeks and all you get is a lousy video? ;-)

Desktop CNC machines cost a fraction of Rapid Prototyping machines  
and generate wonderful real life 3D replicas of the 3d stuff we model  
day in day out. I have some code that is tested and works with Isel  
CNC machines, and I would like to integrate that into Blender, so  
that nobody has to be a machinist to get a nice reproduction or mold.

Some links to what I did so far (simple desk size CNC machine w/ very  
cheap foam (and a cheap out of focus camera)):
http://www.matthiasm.com/cnc/
http://www.matthiasm.com/cnc/DSC00010.JPG

I saw that there is a - now abandoned? - CAD script suite for  
Blender, even that some CAM support was proposed, but I did not see  
anything implemented. Is there anything out already that I missed?

If not, here's my quest; I do have some crude but working code to  
generate G-Code (the file format needed by CNC machines) to mill 3d  
objects out of foam using a depth map of a 3D object. I would like to  
port it over to Blender in the hope that it will find many users and  
among them some programmers who would help to improve the code.

So here are some requests for you guys:
1: Please let me know if there is a similar project out there, so I  
don't do double work.
2: I am an experienced 3d SW developer (SoftImage, Maya, 3ds) but I  
have not written anything for Blender yet. Where do I start reading  
documentation?
3: Should I just hack away, or is it better to give regular reports?  
In this group?

I plan to create a new object type that represents the raw material  
that the user wants to mill out of. One would simply lay that over an  
existing model and the plugin would calculate the material that needs  
to be removed, and the tools and tool paths needed to get that done.

Thanks for Blender. This is fantastic software!!!!

Matthias