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Contents
  • Introduction
  • Basics
    • User Interface
    • Drawing and System tabs
    • Rotating and panning
    • Selecting objects
    • Toolpaths and gcode
    • Drawing Units
    • File Menu
    • View Menu
    • Tools Menu
    • Simple Example
    • Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Machining (CAM)
    • Machining Basics
    • Profile
    • Pocket
    • Drill
    • Engrave
    • 3D Profile
    • Lathe
    • Creating GCode
    • Machining Options
    • Edit Gcode
    • CAM Part
    • CAM Styles
    • Lead Moves
    • Holding Tabs
    • Side Profiles
    • Post Processor
    • Back Plotting
    • Tool Libraries
    • Speeds and Feeds Calculator
  • Drawing (CAD)
    • Entities
    • Layers
    • Transformations
    • Operations
    • Edit Polyline
    • Edit Surface
    • Edit Points
    • Creating Surfaces
    • Region Fill
  • Tutorials
    • Profile
    • Pocketing
    • Drilling
    • Bitmap Heightmaps
    • Text Engraving
    • 3D Profile
    • 3D Profile - Back face
  • Automation
  • Configuration
  • Appendix
    • What's New?
Documentation for the latest CamBam release is available here...

CAD Entities

Polyline

Polylines consist of multiple straight line and circular arc segments.

Polylines are used internally to represent toolpath shapes as they correspond well to gcode G1 (line) and G2,G3 (arc) moves.

Properties

Closed

True | False

Open polylines have two ends and no defined inside or outside.

Closed polylines are where the first and last points are the same and have a well defined inside and outside.

Note Polylines with first and last points having the same coordinates are not necessarily closed. The closed marker should be set to True for these shapes otherwise unexpected results may occur.

Points

This property contains a collection of polyline points. Clicking the [...] button to the right of the property will open up a window where the points can be edited directly.

Each point contains an X,Y and Z coordinate and a bulge parameter.

Bulge is defined as tan(sweep angle/4) for arc segments, where bulge=0 is a straight line.
Tag
[New! 0.9.8]

A general purpose, multiline text field that can be used to store notes or parameters from plugins.

Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

Region

A region consists of a closed outer shape and a number of internal holes.

To create a region, select inner and outer shapes then use the Edit - Convert - To Region menu option, or press CTRL+R

Circle

Properties

Center

The coordinates of the center of the circle

Diameter

The diameter of the circle.

Tag
[New! 0.9.8]

A general purpose, multiline text field that can be used to store notes or parameters from plugins.

Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

PointList

Point lists are useful for defining points to be used for drilling operations.

As well as drawing directly, they can be created from the Draw-Point List menu operations

Divide Geometry

Evenly divides a selected shape into a given number and inserts a point at each division.

This is useful for generating a bolt hole pattern.

Step Around Geometry

Inserts a point at given distances around a selected shape.

Fill Geometry

Fills a closed shape with points.

Offset Fill Geometry

Fills a closed shape with points where alternating rows are offset by half the stepping distance.

Centers

Inserts a point at the center of each selected object.

Extents

Inserts a point at the extremities and center of a boundary rectangle enclosing each selected object.

Properties

Points

This property contains a collection of points. Clicking the [...] button to the right of the property will open up a window where the points can be edited directly.

Tag
[New! 0.9.8]

A general purpose, multiline text field that can be used to store notes or parameters from plugins.

Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

Rectangle

Properties

Corner Radius

This will round the corners of the rectangle to a given radius.

Height

The height of the rectangle.

Lower Left

The coordinates of the lower left corner of the rectangle.

Width

The width of the rectangle.

Tag
[New! 0.9.8]

A general purpose, multiline text field that can be used to store notes or parameters from plugins.

Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

Text

Properties

Bold Bold Font Style.
Char Space This option scales the width used for each character. The default is 1. A setting of 2 would double the space used for each character (but not the character itself).
Font This is the name of the font to use for the text.
Height

This is the text height in drawing units.

The height is based on the em square, which is a property of the font that describes the largest dimensions possible of the font.

To obtain an accurate height, given the text and font entered, the Edit - Resize command should be used.

Italic Italic Font Style.
Line Space This scales the distance between each text line. The default is 1.
Location This is the first and at the moment, only alignment point. The TextAlignmentH and TextAlignmentV options are all relative to this point.
Regular Regular Font Style.
Tag
[New! 0.9.8]

A general purpose, multiline text field that can be used to store notes or parameters from plugins.

Text The text to enter. To enter multi line text, click the [...] button after this property.
Text Alignment Horizontal Left, Center or Right (relative to Location).
Text Alignment Vertical Top, Center or Bottom (relative to Location).
NOTE: Bottom is actually the baseline of the text.
Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

Arc

Properties

Center

The center of the arc.

Radius

The radius of the arc.

Start

The start angle in degrees of the first arc point. Angle = 0 is along the positive X axis.

Sweep

The sweep angle in degrees from the first to second arc point. Positive angles are counter clockwise and negative angles clockwise.

Transform

A 4 x 4 matrix of numbers used for general transformations of the drawing objects.

The transform matrix can be used for rotations, translations and scaling about all 3 axis.

Identity indicates no transformations will be applied to the object.

Line

Lines have multiple segments, similar to polylines, but can only contain straight sections.

Surface

Surfaces are triangle face meshes imported from STL and 3DS files.

Spline

Splines (or NURBS) can currently only be imported from DXF files. Spline drawing is not yet supported.

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