Posted by Philip on Nov 10, 2018; 8:11pm
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/Open-source-CAM-software-tp5716598p5716617.html

First there is an outline of the shape you are cutting which is black.  At least on my machine it's black.  The blue line shows the tool path.  The offset caused by turning cutter compensation on and off is not shown on the screen but it does come into play when the gcode is generated.  I don't use this often but when I do I have to go into the code and tidy things up a bit.

The machinist's at work tell me that when cutting outside to go clockwise or to the right.  Opposite for inside cutting.  This would be for the rough cuts.  When I get to within .05 to .08 is switch the direction of travel for a smoother finish cut.  This will depend on how I want the finished piece to look.  I don't know of a way for DXF2GCODE to do this so I have manually make the changes.

The vast majority of work I do on the CNC is to locate holes in precise locations.  About 90% I would guess.  Then cutting slots and lastly cutting profiles.  If this order were reversed, I would look into another package.

Hope this helps.