FlatCap

Plug-in for Grasshopper (Rhino 7 and 8)

Enables a manufacturing-centric approach to designing for CNC (2.5D) routing by interpreting profile, pocket and engraving lines on specifically-named layers to produce 3D polysurface simulations of milling from stock material

Available now through the PackageManager command in Rhino

An alternative summary explanation:

The plug-in is currently an alpha version. The simulation of pieces containing just profile and pocket lines will always be free, but the more complex simulations, featuring engraving lines, is currently done by the FlatCap Rhino Compute server. Access to the server is enabled by contacting the author via the discussion forum

If you draw lines representing profile cuts, pockets and engraving (centre) lines ..

.. on layers with a specific format to encode some machining data

.. then FlatCap generates 3D polysurfaces representing what milling the stock material would look like based on the machine operations represented by the curves and layer names

More set-up information and general documentation on how the plug-in works is available here:

Documentation

There is a discussion forum available here for feedback and suggestions:

Discussion Forum