I currently operate a HAAS 750SS as my #1 priority. I’ve been dreaming about antiquating the CAM industry – to say the least.
I’m tired of MasterCAM resellers and CNC Software’s lack of development over the last 13+yrs. Not to mention the fact they were bought out by Sandvik etc.
I’ve been wondering if Grasshopper could be used to make toolpaths.
All the above was done in Grasshopper. Just don’t ask me how to generate g-code…
I find that there are cases where a custom-made toolpath made in GH are just fantastic, specially if you want to simulate the kinematics of the robot on the fly based on a parametric shape or pattern you want to mill : How to mill on a complex shape ? - YouTube
In this particular case, I was able to create a geometric law that changed the tool inclination to prevent the spindle from hitting the table (always a plus).
But honestly, for most “run-of-the-mill” (ha ha) paths, it would be extremely cumbersome to create them through a GH definition.
You can also do a lot of cool toolpath stuff by leveraging FlowAlongSrf as shown here:
Really curious how you simulate the material being removed… I think most CAM use voxels.
If you are using sequential booleans, I suspect it is super-slow ?
Yes, sequential booleans and it is slow. I don’t need this so often so I don’t worry too much about the speed.
Check this topic:
Sweep 1 self intersection artifact - Grasshopper - McNeel Forum
There are a few examples, one of them uses Shrinkwrap…
I’m amazed by the rendering of the wood veins…
I could probably help with that part. I know full well what the g-code aspect can be like.
Honestly, I’m willing to build entire CNC machines and all the logic to antiquate the g-code part completely as well.
But that’s of course another huge tangent. And when I do that part, I will probably follow some industry standards as to not completely blow everyone’s minds whom are already familiar with current ‘norms’.
Although, many industry standards are very deficient and so, most likely I would antiquate those problems eventually.
I like the way you put this 
A robot solution for CNC is also very important imo.
That’s awesome 
…I like how that whole table rotates!
I just think of them as ‘cartesian’ robots and the others as ‘articulation’ robots.
I’m also really curious about this! In my experience, I have to maintain large numbers of .stl files for different states of my CNC stock model management, and would rather use NURBS or something other than meshes.
I know that some simulation options do use voxels, but I’d also like to see more options for the user to either have better access to the voxels or some other format.
I guess I’m not a big fan of .stl meshes… mostly cause they can become very resource consuming without better modeling tools.