EasyShape5000 Operation Guide

Overview

EasyShape5000 assigns operations per shape. Select one or more shapes on the canvas or in the scene tree, drop them into an operation bucket, set the parameters, and generate. Buckets are independent, and every change is undoable. Every parameter named here is documented in full on the Parameter Guide.

Seven operations produce toolpaths. Four are flat operations that cut at a set depth; three cut at a different depth at every point and run in the background with a 3D view of the result.

All seven output G-code for a CNC router. Laser and drag-knife work lives in EasyTrace5000.

Flat Operations

These four cut at a depth you set, in as many passes as needed. Curved geometry stays curved all the way to the file, so an offset arc exports as a real arc rather than a string of tiny line segments.

Profile Cut Stable

Cuts along a shape's outline. Cut side decides which edge of the tool lands on your line.

Holding tabs leave small uncut bridges so parts do not break free on the last pass. Tab height is measured up from the cut floor: a 2 mm tab on an 18 mm cut leaves 2 mm of material holding the part.

Detect nested holes treats a shape fully inside another as a hole, so a rectangle with a circle in it cuts the outer boundary and the inner one correctly rather than as two unrelated outlines.

Use it for: cutting parts out, interior windows, and centreline scoring.

Key parameters: cut side, detect nested holes, tabs (count, width, height), plus the depth settings.

Pocket Clear Stable

Clears the whole interior of a closed shape, working inward pass by pass at the step-over you set. Shapes nested inside the boundary are treated as islands and left standing.

Running out of material to remove is the intended end state, so a message saying the geometry collapsed at some pass is this operation finishing normally. If a pocket produces nothing at all, the tool is wider than the shape.

Use it for: recesses, inlay cavities, and surfacing bounded areas.

Key parameters: step-over, clearing strategy, optional finishing pass and finish step-over, plus depth and entry settings.

Drill Holes Stable

Treats SVG circles and obrounds as holes and picks a strategy per hole by comparing its size with the tool: drilled straight down when the tool matches, milled in a circle when the hole is bigger. A hole too small to mill still gets marked, so nothing is silently dropped.

Milling holes and slots

Turn on Mill Oversize Holes and any hole wider than the tool is cut out rather than drilled: the tool drops inside and walks a circle inset by its own radius, taking as many passes as the step-over needs to clear the middle. It is how you get a 12 mm hole out of a 3 mm end mill, and it is slower than drilling - which is why it is a choice.

Obround slots work the same way along a line. The tool runs the slot centreline and stops one radius short of each end, so the finished slot matches the width and length you drew. Anything in the selection that is neither a circle nor an obround is skipped with a warning rather than guessed at.

Multi-tool drilling. Turn on Multi-Tool Drilling for a table with a row per hole size - each with its own strategy, cutter diameter and tool number. Auto-match fills strategy and cutter from the tool library. A row left without a tool number falls back to the operation's number. On a machine without a tool changer, use Split drill files by hole diameter in the Export Manager so each file loads exactly one bit.

Use it for: mounting holes, dowel holes, and slots.

Key parameters: mill oversize holes and mill step-over; drill cycle (G81/G82/G83/G73), peck depth, dwell, retract height; optional spot drill; entry type and multi-depth settings.

Engrave Stable

Follows a path exactly, with no offset - the tool centre runs along the line. Because nothing is offset, open paths work as well as closed ones, and nothing collapses when the tool is wider than the shape.

Use it for: lettering, outlines, score lines, and any single-line artwork.

Key parameters: cut depth, multi-depth and depth per pass, feeds and speeds.

3D Operations Beta

These three cut at a different depth at every point rather than at a flat depth per pass, so they skip the depth step entirely - the height is part of the path. They generate in the background and render in the 3D view (F2).

They are the newest part of the suite. Check the result in the 3D view and dry-run before cutting.

V-Carve Beta

Variable-depth carving with a V-bit. The bit drops deeper where a shape is wide and rises where it narrows, so the cut width follows the shape and corners come to a clean point - the look you get on carved lettering and signs.

Where an area is wider than the bit can reach at your maximum depth, the floor is flattened at that depth and a pass is added around it, so wide areas get a proper machined floor instead of an impossible one.

Use it for: carved lettering, decorative inlays, and sign work.

Key parameters: V-bit included angle and tip radius; start depth; maximum depth; and four quality settings - minimum chain length, corner angle, sample spacing and noise threshold - which control how much fine detail survives. Loosen them if a carve comes out noisy; tighten them if fine detail is being lost.

Relief / 2.5D Carve Beta

Carves an imported STL as a surface, with roughing passes to clear the bulk and a finishing pass to bring out the detail.

Pick the right tip shape. A ball nose, a flat end mill and a bull nose each reach a different depth over the same slope, and the paths are calculated for the shape you tell it you have. Choosing wrong gouges the model or leaves stock behind - it is not a cosmetic setting.

Depth mapping chooses between Scaled, which stretches the model's height range to fill your carve depth - right for artwork - and Literal, which carves the model at its real millimetres - right for dimensioned parts.

Silhouette boundary decides what happens at the model's edge: Stop leaves the surrounding stock alone, Roll Over forms a wall down past the edge, and Extend keeps cutting a set distance beyond it.

Use it for: moulds, terrain tiles, medallions, and any carved surface from a mesh.

Key parameters: tool tip shape and corner radius; depth mapping, relief depth and start depth; silhouette boundary and its distance; roughing stepdown, step-over and stock to leave; finishing step-over, raster direction and cross finish; resolution and detail cap.

Rotary - Radial Beta

Continuous 4th-axis machining. The blank spins under the cutter while the tool moves along it, so the whole surface is reachable in one operation - the way a lathe reaches everything, but with a shaped profile instead of a round one.

Rotary works in its own frame: zero is the rotary centreline rather than a corner of the table, so negative Z below the axis is correct output. Workspace rotation, mirroring and origin do not apply, and neither does the maximum-depth check - that check assumes flat stock. See Stock, Z zero and coordinates before your first rotary job.

Set which axis the part spins about, how the mesh is oriented on it, the blank you are cutting from, and how the part is held. Workholding and the two end settings decide how far past each end of the model the tool may travel: the chuck end is the low end of the axis, the tail end is the high end, and each can stop at the model, roll over into a lip, or taper down to the drive stub.

Minimum radius is the drive stub the tool never cuts into - what a chuck grips and a tailstock centre bears on. Leave enough of it.

Use it for: table legs, chess pieces, columns, and anything turned or fully round.

Key parameters: kinematics, rotary axis, model orientation, axial datum and offset, stock shape and blank diameter, workholding and end modes, minimum radius, roughing and finishing settings, resolution and detail cap.

Rotary - Indexed 3+1 Beta

The same operation with kinematics set to indexed. Instead of spinning while cutting, the blank rotates to a fixed angle, locks, and one flat face is machined with ordinary three-axis motion. Then it rotates to the next face and repeats.

That reaches undercuts and flats a continuous wrap cannot, at the cost of a faceted blank. Face count is a fixed set - 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 - because the blank has to be a real prism. Blank width is the across-flats size; leave it at 0 to have it worked out from the mesh, or enter your own. It doubles as your Z datum, so it only ever grows when you regenerate - a small model change cannot silently move your zero.

Axis overcut cuts a little deeper into the waste outside the drive core so opposing faces overlap rather than meeting exactly. It is separate from the drive stub, and a job can and often should have both.

Use it for: faceted and multi-sided parts, and undercuts a continuous wrap cannot reach.

Key parameters: face count, start angle, blank width, indexed depth, axis overcut, collision guard, roughing stepdown, raster direction and cross finish - plus everything shared with radial.

Not Yet Available

Listed here so nothing on this page describes something that does not exist:

• Pattern generator - not functional, and likely to become its own tool rather than an operation.
• Pocket raster strategy - selectable, not implemented.
• Engrave fill - paths only, no hatch.
• Relief mold mode - inversion runs but is not usable.
• Grayscale image heightmaps - planned alongside STL. STL is the only mesh input today.
• Toolpath playback - the 3D view draws paths and stock but does not animate them.