Talk:Pencil milling

I'm still waiting for someone to put in a good diagram, explanation, and purpose of this machining strategy, before I get round to describing the algorithm for calculating it, which will probably be done in a posting to my blog so it can be cited. 86.135.164.22 16:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At last a diagram. But it needs to be much higher contrast on the toolpath, show the tool actually on the path (not at the retract stage), and what would be best would be to show it as part of a toolpath simulation against a previous toolpath which is a rough parallel machining operation, so you can see that it's running along the groove and getting rid of the worst cusps in there. Goatchurch 14:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ZMap is an algorithm proposed in an academic paper for calculating cutter location points. In that paper is was then applied to the problem of making pencil toolpaths, but it has nothing to do with pencil milling. When there is a good page about finding cutter location points (that is points where the tool can be held in contact with the model), ZMap should be merged into that.Goatchurch 15:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC) -- In fact, why wait. I'll just go ahead and do it, since there is already a cutter location page.Goatchurch 15:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]