Release notes

This is a beta Version intended for further testing by the community. If you find any issues please Report them with the Issue Tracking System: http://sourceforge.net/p/dxf2gcode/tickets/ or use the forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/dxf2gcode-users

Latest release (2017-09-25)

• Quiet a few stability fixes (for crashes in various places),
• Two stage PDF to DXF conversion (requires additional pdftops tool),
• Support for DXF with different file encoding (utf-8, cp1252, cp850),
• Application starts in full (windowed) screen,
• Support for system-wide installation on all supported platforms,
• Configuration files (on all platforms) moved to ~/.config/dxf2gcode directory,
• Windows MSI installation file (DXF2GCODE-YYYY.MM.DD-win32.msi),
• Unix compatible source release (dxf2gcode-YYYYMMDD.zip),
• Unix installation script (st-setup.py - for use by distributions for making packaging easier),
• Freedesktop compatible desktop file and AppStream metadata,
• dxf2gcode package for Fedora Linux distribution.

release (2016-04-17)

Biggest changes compared to 2015-10-4:
Configuration windows are added. So no longer it is needed to edit the .cfg files manually.
Bugfix with relation to determining the drawing units.
Save project as feature can also handle blocks now.
With the automatic cutter compensation option shapes are ordered from innermost to outermost again
*Offset algorithm is still under construction...

release (2015-10-4)

Biggest changes compared to 2015-6-9:
* Huge changes in the source code. Pretty much everything is touched. It now supports PyQt5 and PyQt4 with Python 2.6+ or Python 3+
* New 3d mode available (can be enabled in the config file by setting mode3d to True) -panning is done while holding shift; zooming with scroll; rotating with alt (depending if you do it with right click or left click you turn over different axes). Because it’s 3d you are able to see all segments. So you can see that you might have multiple line segments where a single one would suffice – indicating your dxf was not made optimal; here you can also see the effect of split line segments (is an option)
* Every change in the tool parameters now updates the canvas, (the thickness of the shape; the direction arrows may change etc.) – it is probably most visible if you use the drag knife option and change the tool width.
* Added the long awaited feature that makes it possible to save your project. So no longer needed to retype all parameters if you want to run it again, or if you have updated your original file with some added shapes etc... - changing shapes is allowed, but they will be considered a complete new shape (so you do need to retype it for that shape, but not updated shapes are added last, so they are easy to notice in tree view)
* DXF2GCODE is now able to create the G41 and G42 paths (cutter offset). So if your machine cannot handle the cutter compensation you can just create it. You can turn it on in the config file under Cutter_Compensation by setting done_by_machine to False. It is still in Beta form.
* Everything now looks at absolute values, i.e. blocks can be applied to everything you want. First if you used blocks you might have experienced unexpected results for usage with the dragknife option and also with the breaks.
* The direction of the shapes is now by default always clock wise – for straight lines it looks at the position wrt to the work piece zero
* Automatic cutter compensation now can handle nested shapes
* Incremental programming is now supported - G91; in the postpro_config file it’s denoted by abs_export (you should for this option set it on False)
* Break shapes are now applied in the post processor (no longer during import). Meaning it only applies the break shapes that are active (i.e. you can deselect some) consequence break shapes are no longer treated as normal shapes i.e. if you have selected them and you do an export it no longer produces g-code for them, but simply uses them to break other shapes.
* Breaks can now be applied to circles.
* Removed "random" circles in the export. This happened when you had zero length geos. These are now removed. Since zero lenght geos, if they were an arc, would become a full circle (gcode feature)
* PostPro config can now handle special characters, like "%nl"
* Fix for Cannot turn cutter radius compensation when (it is) on - linuxCNC error

release (Py2_PyQt4_2015-6-9)

Biggest changes compared to 2015-02-04:

• drastically improved the optimization of paths (TSP)
• specify the drawing units of the tool parameters in the config file (for the default parameters)
• blocks are now assigned to the correct layer
• Tool was going to BREAKS: layer's mill depth even when the pass was still above it. Now tool passes over the breaks untill pass is lower than BEAKS: mill depth.
• breaks now also work on arcs (/circles)
• split edges is working (again)
• changed the appearance of disabled shapes
• a few more "minor" bugs ...

release (Py2_PyQt4_2015-2-4)

This is a beta Version intended for further testing by the community. If you find any issues please Report them with the Issue Tracking System of Google code: http://code.google.com/p/dxf2gcode/issues/list or use the forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/dxf2gcode-users

Biggest changes compared to 2014-2-12

• Updated the license
• Filenames can contain special characters
• Drag-Knife (swivel knife) option added - see GUI or config file General machine_type = option('milling', 'drag_knife')
• French language support
• Break layers algorithm fixed
• Layer commands can now have a different separator instead of : (which is not officially supported in a DXF file) - see config file Layer_Options idfloatseparator
• ..