Skip to content

Quick Start

Basic Use

To use, simply instantiate the G object and use its methods to trace your desired tool path.

from mecode import G

g = G()

# move 10mm in x and 10mm in y
g.move(10, 10)  (1)

# counterclockwise arc with a radius of 20
g.arc(x=10, y=5, radius=20, direction='CCW')

# trace a rectangle meander with 1mm spacing between passes
g.meander(5, 10, spacing=1)

# move the tool head to position (1, 1)
g.abs_move(x=1, y=1)  

# move the tool head to the origin (0, 0)
g.home()

By default mecode simply prints the generated GCode to stdout. If instead you want to generate a file, you can pass a filename and turn off the printing when instantiating the G object.

g = G(outfile='path/to/file.gcode', print_lines=False)

NOTE: g.teardown() must be called after all commands are executed if you are writing to a file. This can be accomplished automatically by using G as a context manager like so:

with G(outfile='file.gcode') as g:
    g.move(10)

When the with block is exited, g.teardown() will be automatically called.

The resulting toolpath can be visualized in 3D using the matplotlib or vpython package with the view() method:

g = G()
g.meander(10, 10, 1)
g.view()

Visualization

The graphics backend can be specified when calling the view() method and providing one of the following as the backend argument:

  • 2d -- 2D visualization figure
  • 3d -- 3D visualization figure (1)
  • animated -- animated rendering (2)
  1. matplotlib is also supported for backwards compatibility
  2. vpython is also supported for backwards compatibility

E.g. 

g.view('matplotlib')

Check out tutorials/visualization for more advanced visualizations.