RhinoCAM v Grasshopper Wood milling solutions

[evg]

Hello,

As I learn more about working with KUKA PRC and its applications, I am wondering what best practices are given the fabrication problem we need to address? for example, when faced with wood milling using many step-downs or a complicated toolpath, is it always a good idea to default to RhinoCAM first given that grasshopper could complicate things? What is the most time efficient choice?

Thanks

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

That depends, if you are doing individual objects, using a CAM software is more efficient. If you are milling e.g. many timber joints where each joint has got a different angle, then programming it in Grasshopper is probably the way to go.
I'm personally still waiting for a CAM software that allows us to set the parameters and geometry via Grasshopper.
I know that there are some internal efforts happening, but no product yet (to my knowledge).

Best,
Johannes

[evg]

Interesting, so if I understand grasshopper currently seems to have an advantage on highly customized production for assemblage, etc and rhino cam is more of a one-off for individual milling of a specific object or piece. is there any value in using grasshopper to iterate through many milling possibilities of a single object and then using rhino cam to generate a final toolpath? or would it better to keep the workflow on a single plugin?

Thanks

Erick

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Erick,
While it's perfectly possible to iterate through different milling approaches, the problem is the evaluation as Grasshopper does not have a module to simulate material removal (and Boolean operations get very slow at some point). Also, even in specialized milling software, calculating the resulting geometry from a toolpath takes quite a while to compute, which does not lend itself to the very direct interaction that is desirable in visual programming.
A very plausible way would be to use parametric design to tweak a geometry to be optimized for a certain machine/tool/etc.
You just always need to evaluate if it's quicker to draw something "by hand" or to define it parametrically. That always depends very much on the project, as well as on your skills.

Best,
Johannes