camcraft 0.2.0

camcraft's first release: open-source CAM for 3-axis CNC routers, written in Rust. It turns a STEP or STL model into G-code, and simulates every program against the material before it will write it.

Warning

Use at your own risk. camcraft is pre-alpha and has not been proven on a real machine. Its G-code can be wrong in ways that crash the machine, break tools, ruin the part or hurt someone. Check every program yourself before it cuts: in a simulator you trust, then as an air cut above the stock, with a hand near the e-stop. The software comes with no warranty (see the licences), and its authors are not responsible for crashed machines, broken tools, ruined parts or any other damage.

Downloads

Platform	File	Notes
Windows x86-64	camcraft-0.2.0-windows-x86_64.zip	Windows 10 or 11
Linux x86-64	camcraft-0.2.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz	needs glibc 2.39 or newer (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13 or later), and a desktop with Vulkan or OpenGL for the app
macOS	none	build from source: see the README

Each holds:

• camcraft-gui, the desktop app, and camcraft, the command line. Neither needs installing; everything they use is built in.
• examples/rail-jig.camcraft, a job for a router jig, with the model it machines in fixtures/step/.
• The licences: camcraft's (LICENSE-MIT, LICENSE-APACHE, NOTICE), its fonts' and icons' (licenses/fonts/), and every Rust crate built into it (THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt).

SHA256SUMS lists each file's checksum.

Try it

Unpack the archive, then open the example job in the app:

camcraft-gui examples/rail-jig.camcraft

Press Generate, read the checks, play the program back, then Post. Or from the command line:

camcraft job examples/rail-jig.camcraft            # run and check, write nothing
camcraft job examples/rail-jig.camcraft --out out  # also write the G-code

The executables are not signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before the app first runs.

What it does

• Models: STEP and STL. STEP files are read in the units they declare, with ogeom, and every import is checked against the file it came from.
• Roughing: adaptive clearing and pocket clearing.
• Finishing: parallel, scallop, contour, flat, spiral, radial and morphed spiral.
• 2D: profiles, pockets, facing and drilling.
• Tools: flat, ball, bullnose, V-bit and chamfer cutters, with speed and feed presets, a built-in library of twenty common bits, and Fusion tool libraries imported from CSV.
• Setups: several per job, each with its own orientation, work zero and work offset.
• Checking: every program is simulated against the stock. camcraft refuses to write one that gouges the part or fails another check, and says why.
• Playback: watch the material come off, move by move, before posting.
• Posts: Masso, Centroid CNC12 on an Avid CNC router (each in millimetres or inches) and GRBL built in, or your own profile written in TOML.

If you know Fusion's CAM, it should feel familiar: the operations, their settings and the programs they post follow Fusion's. camcraft is not affiliated with Autodesk.

Lately

• STEP import is ogeom 0.11, which meshes large rounded edges to a fine tolerance.
• A job whose tolerance is finer than the STEP file's own geometry is refused with the reason and the tolerance that reads it, rather than as a failed import. A modeller fits each face and edge to the accuracy the file states, and no mesh can do better than that.

Known limits

• Nothing has been cut yet. See STATUS.md for what only a machine can tell, and what the simulator cannot check for you.
• Job files and post profiles may change without notice before 1.0.
• STEP files whose faces ogeom cannot mesh to the job's tolerance are refused, not approximated.