Heads up on SheetCAM TNG

[torchhead]

Just a quick heads up for SheetCAM users and/or potential users:

The new version (named "TNG") has some added features. One recently added is the ability to import SVG files from Inkscape. Why is that important? Because Inkscape is a nice vector drawing package along the lines of CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator (it in fact will import native files from both those packings) that has some impressive tools including a bitmap tracing function, and best of all ITS FREE! SheetCAM has always been a good choice for Plasma cutting. At a price point below half of most other CAM programs it already is a good deal. Pair it with Inkscape and it gets even sweeter.

I have been a Corel guy for may years (even taught classes on it for CNC use) BUT I was always able to find a version or two back really cheap. Lately the older versions (they just released X5) are getting harder to find so some of the red is off the lollipop!. Inscape is worth a look. (it's DXF export is dismal though)

For those of you using CorelDraw with SheetCAM you know about the DXF segmentation problem (same problem plagues Illustrator). They both do DXF poorly. There is salvation for CorelDraw users. Get over to http://www.CorelDrawTools.com and try the demo of DXFTools for Corel. It replaces the Corel DXF export filter and lets you export curves with minimum nodes to SheetCAM. It's inexpensive and a great tool fo really smooth exports. It won't fix bad artwork that already has line segment curves (bad artwork inported into Corel is STILL bad artwork!) but it will let you export those nice curves that Corel is famous for.

TOM caudle