Gcodetools - Inkscape's CAM extension

Glad to hear that. If you'll got any questions or suggestions do not hesitate to write them .

Hello Nick,
I just had to change it from /home to /home/brian
now it writes file fine.

Great job with the gcode extention for Inkscape, I Love it!
This is a very powerful option for EMC2
I am going to be trying out all of the features.


~*Brian VanDiepenbos

>> Select one of the active tabs - Path to Gcode, Area, Engraving, DXF points, Orientation, Offset, Lathe or Tools library.

Just do what is says .

Gcodetools has a lot of functions so it needs a radio buttons or something like that to select the certain function. So we have decided to use the name of the currently opened tab at it's form.

So if you want export Path to Gcode, open path to Gcode tab and Press Apply.
If you need Engraving open Engraving Tab and press apply.

Such way you can run several functions from one extensions window. And when you press apply from "non functional" tabs such Preferences or options Gcodetools raises an exception asking to choose proper tab.

PS in windows you have to put extension's files into C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\share\extensions\ (probably you'll need admin wrights to do it) or in your own user settings directory, something like C:\Documents and settings\user\application data\inkscape...
On ubuntu it's /usr/share/inkscape/extensions/ and /home/nick/.config/inkscape/extensions/ .

Yeah, engraving is a little bit of that .

It was developed to make a Gcode to cut out thin places and sharp corners in precutted with cylindrical bit ornaments. And it shown up that if the path is thin enough to cut it with the shaped bit with one pass, this function creates suitable trajectory. So most of text, and ornaments can be cut with only one pass.

Even if tutorial is outdated main steps should be the same.

One tip, try to break paths appart as much as possible - it'll save calculation time. For example if you want to engrave text after it's better if all letters are separate paths.

Yep you've got it .

Sorry for late answer gmail put linuxcnc subscription's mail to spam !

You can also copy the files into ~/.config/inkscape/extensions so you would not need to be a super user. But then gcodetools will be installed for your user only.

(~/ is your home dir)