Author Topic: NOW OPEN SOURCE!!! swill's plate building tool [builder.swillkb.com]  (Read 3045965 times)

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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #200 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 13:10:57 »
I'm not sure if this has been asked so i will ask it and hope it hasn't

Will this support big-ass enter as well?
What is the big-ass enter?  Do you know the size and the location of the cutout and stabilizers?  I don't think I have ever seen a keycap set with this option.


Items I want to resolve before I put it live for people to play with:

Cheers!

http://builder.swillkb.com/
f5 f5 f5
Haha. This isn't a clack sale. :). Unfortunately I have been too busy working on this to even pay attention to that f5 clack sale. Oh well. Dose priorities.

I won't put anything on that URL till I have it ready. I will let you know when its live. :). That was just an /etc/hosts entry to hide the real IP where it is running since I don't want people messing with my testing.

Offline Charger

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #201 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 16:19:55 »
I'm not sure if this has been asked so i will ask it and hope it hasn't

Will this support big-ass enter as well?
What is the big-ass enter?  Do you know the size and the location of the cutout and stabilizers?  I don't think I have ever seen a keycap set with this option.

Sadly I don't have any information to contribute as to layout for the bag-ass enter. I myself I'm planning to do a build that will need one at some point though is why i asked. The keyboard layout generator you are using has a preset for big-ass enter but I don't think it has a common layout from what I have seen in images every one I see seems a little different for stab layout.

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #202 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 16:33:32 »
"Big-Ass" Enter is a J-Shape Enter key. It's as if the |\ key and the Enter key of a standard ANSI keyboard were fused. 1.5u on top and 2.25u on bottom, 2u tall.

I don't have stem spacing. :(
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #203 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 16:43:53 »
"Big-Ass" Enter is a J-Shape Enter key. It's as if the |\ key and the Enter key of a standard ANSI keyboard were fused. 1.5u on top and 2.25u on bottom, 2u tall.

I don't have stem spacing. :(

Ahh, yes, I know what you are talking about.  You are referring to this enter key: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/d659e7a2631608f7639c8b2963f53701

This is a very common enter key on the old ALPS boards from what I can tell.  dorkvader and I have discussed this key quite a bit about 10-15 posts ago when discussing the 'height > 1' keys being defined in the top or bottom row.  Most of the 'height > 1' keys are defined in the top row they occupy where as this key actually is defined in the bottom row it occupies and is then shifted up.  This is due to the way the keyboard-layout-editor handles 'fused' keys.

My biggest problem with supporting this key right now is that I have no information at all regarding the cutout placement or what the stabilization situation is like for this key.  I am going to have to rewrite my cutout logic to handle 'height > 1' keys, so I will try to rewrite it in a way that I 'could' support this key once I understand what the cutout would be for it, but this may be in a much later iteration of the code...

Offline MOZ

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #204 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 16:47:22 »
As I mentioned a few posts earlier, that key has many different stem/stab configs, there really is no standard.

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #205 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 16:50:09 »
As I mentioned a few posts earlier, that key has many different stem/stab configs, there really is no standard.

I guess as far as MX goes, the SteelSeries 7G would be the standard to look at. It's probably the most common, outside of Asia, anyway.
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #206 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 17:29:28 »


Items I want to resolve before I put it live for people to play with:

Cheers!

http://builder.swillkb.com/
f5 f5 f5
Haha. This isn't a clack sale. :). Unfortunately I have been too busy working on this to even pay attention to that f5 clack sale. Oh well. Dose priorities.

I won't put anything on that URL till I have it ready. I will let you know when its live. :). That was just an /etc/hosts entry to hide the real IP where it is running since I don't want people messing with my testing.
I knew it!

Somehow I knew you wouldn't be lazy or forget to be careful.

Oh well, I'll test the heck out of it once it's ready.

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #207 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 17:48:19 »
As I mentioned a few posts earlier, that key has many different stem/stab configs, there really is no standard.

As I mentioned a few posts earlier, that key has many different stem/stab configs, there really is no standard.

I guess as far as MX goes, the SteelSeries 7G would be the standard to look at. It's probably the most common, outside of Asia, anyway.
Ya, this key is not a priority for me. The ISO is much more of a priority because people actually use it. Luckily the code to produce it is consistent with other 'height > 1' keys, so I will not have to do any funny shenanigans to support it. :)

Offline dorkvader

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #208 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 21:59:16 »
Not a "core" feature, but there appears to be a bug in the code not allowing you to set the height of the first key to be anything less than 1x.

This is not a huge deal as most users will be using "standard" 1x or greater key spacing in all directions, but cherry keyboards with the switches jammed in together as tight as possible do exist and keycaps shorter than 1x in height exist as well.

I can't imagine anyone wanting this layout in cherry MX (much more likely for ALPS) but it is in theory possible and making sure the output works correctly possibly will be important to someone eventually.

Example (note F1 key: specified as 0.6x height like the rest but rendered at 1x height):
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5418d327ed8ee812432bc489c5099ed6

Oh I think you said your current test hardware is not very fast: do you have sufficient hardware to quickly render these or should we run up a donation drive? I think TP4 has some servers he's not using.

Ya, this key is not a priority for me. The ISO is much more of a priority because people actually use it. Luckily the code to produce it is consistent with other 'height > 1' keys, so I will not have to do any funny shenanigans to support it. :)
Yeah, I think the code just recognizing that "hey, there's an ISO enter here" and rendering the proper stabilizer/switch holes for it is plenty for almost everyone and a fully featured first release.

I hope that my posting all the time in this topic is not distracting or annoying. It's hard to contain my excitement, but sometimes I wonder if I'm not being helpful, what with my lack of programming experience.

Still: I'm happy to help in any way I can, just let me know!
« Last Edit: Wed, 07 January 2015, 22:02:05 by dorkvader »

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #209 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 23:13:51 »
Not a "core" feature, but there appears to be a bug in the code not allowing you to set the height of the first key to be anything less than 1x.

This is not a huge deal as most users will be using "standard" 1x or greater key spacing in all directions, but cherry keyboards with the switches jammed in together as tight as possible do exist and keycaps shorter than 1x in height exist as well.

I can't imagine anyone wanting this layout in cherry MX (much more likely for ALPS) but it is in theory possible and making sure the output works correctly possibly will be important to someone eventually.

Example (note F1 key: specified as 0.6x height like the rest but rendered at 1x height):
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/5418d327ed8ee812432bc489c5099ed6

Oh I think you said your current test hardware is not very fast: do you have sufficient hardware to quickly render these or should we run up a donation drive? I think TP4 has some servers he's not using.

Ya, this key is not a priority for me. The ISO is much more of a priority because people actually use it. Luckily the code to produce it is consistent with other 'height > 1' keys, so I will not have to do any funny shenanigans to support it. :)
Yeah, I think the code just recognizing that "hey, there's an ISO enter here" and rendering the proper stabilizer/switch holes for it is plenty for almost everyone and a fully featured first release.

I hope that my posting all the time in this topic is not distracting or annoying. It's hard to contain my excitement, but sometimes I wonder if I'm not being helpful, what with my lack of programming experience.

Still: I'm happy to help in any way I can, just let me know!

I really appreciate how active you have been in this thread.  You have spent a lot of time with the keyboard-layout-editor, so your experience is invaluable.  Its not all about the code, its also about what users want, how we expect them to use it and general help with the expected/useful functionality.

I think you have found a bug regarding the first key not rendering the correct height in the keyboard-layout-editor.  When I have some time I will look into the code for that and open an issue for him and submit a pull request to fix it.  Thats the beauty of open source code...  :)

The switch cutout for a key that is only 60% height of a regular key has to be the same as regular (because that is determined by the switch), but how close can you put that key to the row below it?  I think you only have about 3-4 mm between the switches, so you cant put them so the keycaps would touch or the cutout would not work for both switches.  Do you know more details on that or will I just have to figure out what the minimum distance is and if they specify something that I don't think will actually work, I just put it at the minimum distance?  I guess the minimum distance is relative to the type of material being used.  Hmmm...

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #210 on: Wed, 07 January 2015, 23:30:18 »
Oh I think you said your current test hardware is not very fast: do you have sufficient hardware to quickly render these or should we run up a donation drive? I think TP4 has some servers he's not using.

Oh, about the servers...  No I don't need any funding.  I have the perk of working for a cloud computing company and we have our own gated public cloud which I am 'testing'.  :P  We need to actually put it through its paces and test all the edge cases and stuff as we start to put customers on it, so I am taking advantage of that and have access to as much resources as I need.  Right now I am running my server with 4 cores and 16GB of ram.  FreeCAD is not super fast when it comes to drawing, rendering and exporting the cad which is why it is a little slow, its not really a lack of resources.  I think that people can chill out and wait for 30 seconds while their cad is drawn for them.  It is going to be a hell of a lot faster than if they were to do it by hand, so people will learn patience...  :P

Offline joey

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #211 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 05:09:44 »
Just keep in mind that the hole types will get more expensive as you move from the left to the right as they are pictured in swills latest post.  The reason is it just takes longer to cut.  Especially with waterjet.

Any idea how much difference we're talking?

Offline MOZ

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #212 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 07:06:05 »
I think swill posted a good approximate a few pages back on how the costs generally scale based on complexity of the switch.

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #213 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 08:07:40 »
Just keep in mind that the hole types will get more expensive as you move from the left to the right as they are pictured in swills latest post.  The reason is it just takes longer to cut.  Especially with waterjet.

Any idea how much difference we're talking?

I think swill posted a good approximate a few pages back on how the costs generally scale based on complexity of the switch.
I posted that in the CAD Resource Hub because the same question was asked there.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=47744.msg1578128.msg#1578128

Offline dorkvader

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #214 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 10:05:45 »

I think you have found a bug regarding the first key not rendering the correct height in the keyboard-layout-editor.  When I have some time I will look into the code for that and open an issue for him and submit a pull request to fix it.  Thats the beauty of open source code...  :)

The switch cutout for a key that is only 60% height of a regular key has to be the same as regular (because that is determined by the switch), but how close can you put that key to the row below it?  I think you only have about 3-4 mm between the switches, so you cant put them so the keycaps would touch or the cutout would not work for both switches.  Do you know more details on that or will I just have to figure out what the minimum distance is and if they specify something that I don't think will actually work, I just put it at the minimum distance?  I guess the minimum distance is relative to the type of material being used.  Hmmm...

Credit where it's due, Jacobolus found that bug.

As far as the switch cutout for a 0.6 height key, all the ones I have seen have a smaller keycap that is centered on the switch. It's an odd case, as you could do it differently. I suppose asking people to do things for really odd stuff like that can do their own cad file or input workable switches in the the tool yielding the cutouts they want.

Still, you can place the switches right up next to eachother if you have smaller keycaps like that. But in such a case you can't have a plate in that area.

I will do some measuring to get the minimum distance but I believe it's 15mm

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #215 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 10:11:43 »

I think you have found a bug regarding the first key not rendering the correct height in the keyboard-layout-editor.  When I have some time I will look into the code for that and open an issue for him and submit a pull request to fix it.  Thats the beauty of open source code...  :)

The switch cutout for a key that is only 60% height of a regular key has to be the same as regular (because that is determined by the switch), but how close can you put that key to the row below it?  I think you only have about 3-4 mm between the switches, so you cant put them so the keycaps would touch or the cutout would not work for both switches.  Do you know more details on that or will I just have to figure out what the minimum distance is and if they specify something that I don't think will actually work, I just put it at the minimum distance?  I guess the minimum distance is relative to the type of material being used.  Hmmm...

Credit where it's due, Jacobolus found that bug.

As far as the switch cutout for a 0.6 height key, all the ones I have seen have a smaller keycap that is centered on the switch. It's an odd case, as you could do it differently. I suppose asking people to do things for really odd stuff like that can do their own cad file or input workable switches in the the tool yielding the cutouts they want.

Still, you can place the switches right up next to each other if you have smaller keycaps like that. But in such a case you can't have a plate in that area.

I will do some measuring to get the minimum distance but I believe it's 15mm

Cool thanks.  I will think about how to best handle this.  Luckily there is a live preview of your plate before you download, so if you see that cutouts are overlapping you can easily adjust your layout and try again, so its not the end of the world.  I could try to put something in place to make sure that the combination of height and y and such do not put the cutouts too close.  I will think about it.  For now I think people will just have to check their work before they send it to be manufactured.  :P

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #216 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 10:22:00 »
Cool thanks.  I will think about how to best handle this.  Luckily there is a live preview of your plate before you download, so if you see that cutouts are overlapping you can easily adjust your layout and try again, so its not the end of the world.  I could try to put something in place to make sure that the combination of height and y and such do not put the cutouts too close.  I will think about it.  For now I think people will just have to check their work before they send it to be manufactured.  :P

Yeah, or if they need something that the tool can't handle, there's at least one person active in the forum who considers himself pretty good at designing keyboard plates. I hear that guy is usually pretty responsive to custom requests, if you ask him nicely.
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Offline azhdar

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #217 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:00:16 »
Just throwing an idea around , but could be interesting for it to generate a CAD based on 2+ keyboard layouts .

For my personnal use , I switch between 2.75u rShift and 1.75u rShift  +1u key. Having my own "Universal" plate with cut-outs for both rShift configuration would be fantastic .

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Offline MOZ

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #218 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:27:40 »
Cool thanks.  I will think about how to best handle this.  Luckily there is a live preview of your plate before you download, so if you see that cutouts are overlapping you can easily adjust your layout and try again, so its not the end of the world.  I could try to put something in place to make sure that the combination of height and y and such do not put the cutouts too close.  I will think about it.  For now I think people will just have to check their work before they send it to be manufactured.  :P

Yeah, or if they need something that the tool can't handle, there's at least one person active in the forum who considers himself pretty good at designing keyboard plates. I hear that guy is usually pretty responsive to custom requests, if you ask him nicely.

I feel the pain, ain't nobody going to PM me now for case building. :/

Offline Melvang

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #219 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:31:36 »
Just out of curiosity, are the downloaded files going to be 2d or 3d? 
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Offline FrostyToast

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #220 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:50:08 »
Just out of curiosity, are the downloaded files going to be 2d or 3d?

The video shows a 3D render of the finished plate.
I would guess that it is in fact 3D.
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #221 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:54:14 »
Just throwing an idea around , but could be interesting for it to generate a CAD based on 2+ keyboard layouts .

For my personnal use , I switch between 2.75u rShift and 1.75u rShift  +1u key. Having my own "Universal" plate with cut-outs for both rShift configuration would be fantastic .

I don't think I am going to be committing to this at this point.  Especially since I think those two cutouts will actually overlap (if I remember correctly) and one uses a stabilizer and the other doesnt.  I see this being a mess.  I have not tried it, but you might be able to just code both keys in the layout editor and superimpose them on top of each other with the correct negative x setting to have the tool cut both cutouts.  I have never tried this and I will not vouch for it working, but it 'might' be possible to do it that way...

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #222 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 11:55:25 »
Just out of curiosity, are the downloaded files going to be 2d or 3d? 

Just out of curiosity, are the downloaded files going to be 2d or 3d?

The video shows a 3D render of the finished plate.
I would guess that it is in fact 3D.

Yes, the downloads are 3D solid drawings...

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #223 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 12:04:46 »
Just throwing an idea around , but could be interesting for it to generate a CAD based on 2+ keyboard layouts .

For my personnal use , I switch between 2.75u rShift and 1.75u rShift  +1u key. Having my own "Universal" plate with cut-outs for both rShift configuration would be fantastic .

I don't think I am going to be committing to this at this point.  Especially since I think those two cutouts will actually overlap (if I remember correctly) and one uses a stabilizer and the other doesnt.  I see this being a mess.  I have not tried it, but you might be able to just code both keys in the layout editor and superimpose them on top of each other with the correct negative x setting to have the tool cut both cutouts.  I have never tried this and I will not vouch for it working, but it 'might' be possible to do it that way...

Another use case for a human to draw your plate. While this tool is actually nothing short of AMAZEBALLS, and automates things for the vast majority of what people want, there will always be a need for skilled people to be involved when more custom options are required.
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #224 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 12:11:46 »
Cool thanks.  I will think about how to best handle this.  Luckily there is a live preview of your plate before you download, so if you see that cutouts are overlapping you can easily adjust your layout and try again, so its not the end of the world.  I could try to put something in place to make sure that the combination of height and y and such do not put the cutouts too close.  I will think about it.  For now I think people will just have to check their work before they send it to be manufactured.  :P

Yeah, or if they need something that the tool can't handle, there's at least one person active in the forum who considers himself pretty good at designing keyboard plates. I hear that guy is usually pretty responsive to custom requests, if you ask him nicely.

I feel the pain, ain't nobody going to PM me now for case building. :/

Cool thanks.  I will think about how to best handle this.  Luckily there is a live preview of your plate before you download, so if you see that cutouts are overlapping you can easily adjust your layout and try again, so its not the end of the world.  I could try to put something in place to make sure that the combination of height and y and such do not put the cutouts too close.  I will think about it.  For now I think people will just have to check their work before they send it to be manufactured.  :P

Yeah, or if they need something that the tool can't handle, there's at least one person active in the forum who considers himself pretty good at designing keyboard plates. I hear that guy is usually pretty responsive to custom requests, if you ask him nicely.

I am sorry guys.  It was not my intention to replace the need for your services with this.  To be totally honest it didn't even really cross my mind that this tool would actually affect the type of services you guys offer.  :(  I feel really bad because both of you have been very supportive of my work on this, I didn't even consider the fact that I would be taking work away from you guys.

Maybe I can introduce some limitations in the tool and in the help I can send the users to you guys.  :P

I was really expecting this tool to just cater to builders who were prototyping different plates.  It has since grown to potentially supporting different cases and so on...  My initial motivation for doing this was because I thought "it would be awesome if I could just create this layout in the keyboard-layout-editor and then have it automatically draw the plate for me" because I wanted to prototype a new potential 60% layout with my Enabler PCBs.  This is the layout that started it all: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/091af7581f5647094c35386ccdf55d0d

In reality, I am going to get the basic functionality up and it will not be complete for what everyone wants.  I will slowly add features, but I will be doing that at a much slower pace once I get things up.  I have basically spent ALL of my spare time on this for pretty much two months and I still don't have it live yet.  The scale of this project if I actually do everything that everyone wants is much bigger than I would like to admit.  I will try to take little bites out of it, but this tool will never capture the whole plate and case building market.  I bet half the community won't even know it exists for at least a year or two...

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #225 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 12:14:16 »
Just throwing an idea around , but could be interesting for it to generate a CAD based on 2+ keyboard layouts .

For my personnal use , I switch between 2.75u rShift and 1.75u rShift  +1u key. Having my own "Universal" plate with cut-outs for both rShift configuration would be fantastic .

I don't think I am going to be committing to this at this point.  Especially since I think those two cutouts will actually overlap (if I remember correctly) and one uses a stabilizer and the other doesnt.  I see this being a mess.  I have not tried it, but you might be able to just code both keys in the layout editor and superimpose them on top of each other with the correct negative x setting to have the tool cut both cutouts.  I have never tried this and I will not vouch for it working, but it 'might' be possible to do it that way...

Another use case for a human to draw your plate. While this tool is actually nothing short of AMAZEBALLS, and automates things for the vast majority of what people want, there will always be a need for skilled people to be involved when more custom options are required.

Absolutely...  I have no intention of supporting the 'universal' type layouts.  If you can't draw it in the keyboard-layout-editor, I won't support it, end of story. 

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #226 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 12:18:55 »
I am sorry guys.  It was not my intention to replace the need for your services with this.  To be totally honest it didn't even really cross my mind that this tool would actually affect the type of services you guys offer.  :(  I feel really bad because both of you have been very supportive of my work on this, I didn't even consider the fact that I would be taking work away from you guys.

No need to apologize at all. I am usually really busy, and anything that can help people with getting the plate designs they want on their schedule is a good thing. Please don't think I'm upset about losing any income or anything from this. I don't normally charge anything for my help with plates, anyway. Standard (and custom) designs that this tool will generate should be in the public domain, anyway. The only time I hesitate to release something for wide dissemination is when I have spent a lot of time drawing up a proprietary design, and I think the person requesting a copy of it only wants it to sell for profit or something.
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #227 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 12:58:03 »
I am sorry guys.  It was not my intention to replace the need for your services with this.  To be totally honest it didn't even really cross my mind that this tool would actually affect the type of services you guys offer.  :(  I feel really bad because both of you have been very supportive of my work on this, I didn't even consider the fact that I would be taking work away from you guys.

No need to apologize at all. I am usually really busy, and anything that can help people with getting the plate designs they want on their schedule is a good thing. Please don't think I'm upset about losing any income or anything from this. I don't normally charge anything for my help with plates, anyway. Standard (and custom) designs that this tool will generate should be in the public domain, anyway. The only time I hesitate to release something for wide dissemination is when I have spent a lot of time drawing up a proprietary design, and I think the person requesting a copy of it only wants it to sell for profit or something.
Ya, I did not intend to step on anyone's toes with this, so I am glad this isn't conflicting with one of your revenue streams.

BTW, I have no problem promoting skilled community members in my UI.

I could put something like the following in the footer.

"This tool solves for a variety of common layouts, but it does have its limitations. For help on custom projects consider contacting the following geekhack members:
Custom plate design: jdcarpe, ...
Custom case design: MOZ, nudeCNC, ..."

If people are struggling with my tool and need a specialist, it might be a good way to advertise the skilled people in our community.

Anyone who offers services in these areas who want to be featured, just let me know and I can add that section with your name.

I get nothing from people using the tool, so it is not a competition for me. If they have made it to my tool they are serious about building something, so it seems like a perfect place to promote our other skilled people.

Offline Dihedral

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #228 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 13:23:32 »
I love what you are doing here. I am an intermediate-ish python programmer and would like to see the code if it is available but I didn't see a link to source? If you don't want to release it that's totally fine BTW.

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #229 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 13:33:06 »
I love what you are doing here. I am an intermediate-ish python programmer and would like to see the code if it is available but I didn't see a link to source? If you don't want to release it that's totally fine BTW.

My plan is to open source it once I get the initial launch finished.  That being said, some very valid concerns have been raised about me open sourcing the code without putting thought into the license I plan to associate with the project.  I need to be a bit careful how I open source it because I need to ensure that companies dont just gack the code and embed it in their websites for profit.  I want it to be free to use for people who are using it for non-commercial reasons and I need to figure out some sort of licensing for people who want to use it for commercial reasons.  This is obviously not my area of expertise as I completely neglected to think about this until it was brought up in this thread.  I am a little too altruistic and maybe even naive when it comes to that sort of thing, so I do need to put some thought into it before I release the code...  Make sense?

Offline MOZ

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #230 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 14:22:37 »
Hahahahah, I'm not going to lie, it was fun reading you (swill) feel bad for me (I'm a saddist, :P).

Like JDCarpe, I have no issues at all. I was just having some fun. As I mentioned when this project started that I wanted to do something like myself, but never found the time, I'm so happy that someone actually got to doing this.

You'd know from my works, I am always up for building stuff and it being open-source, and never charge anything, for the most simplest of reasons, that I got to learn so much on this community from members like regack (I can't ever thank this man enough, I love him), jdcarpe, WFD, bpiphany, litster, haata and probably more that I can't remember and never paid a dime to them and hence see no reason to charge myself.

Hence you aren't stepping on my toes at the very least, or harming any source of income as there never was. As a matter of fact you are helping me, often I get requests and I'm unable to help much due to my own laziness/busy-ness. :)

Offline azhdar

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #231 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 14:38:21 »
Just throwing an idea around , but could be interesting for it to generate a CAD based on 2+ keyboard layouts .

For my personnal use , I switch between 2.75u rShift and 1.75u rShift  +1u key. Having my own "Universal" plate with cut-outs for both rShift configuration would be fantastic .

I don't think I am going to be committing to this at this point.  Especially since I think those two cutouts will actually overlap (if I remember correctly) and one uses a stabilizer and the other doesnt.  I see this being a mess.  I have not tried it, but you might be able to just code both keys in the layout editor and superimpose them on top of each other with the correct negative x setting to have the tool cut both cutouts.  I have never tried this and I will not vouch for it working, but it 'might' be possible to do it that way...

Another use case for a human to draw your plate. While this tool is actually nothing short of AMAZEBALLS, and automates things for the vast majority of what people want, there will always be a need for skilled people to be involved when more custom options are required.

Absolutely...  I have no intention of supporting the 'universal' type layouts.  If you can't draw it in the keyboard-layout-editor, I won't support it, end of story.
Ok thanks to both of you for the answers .
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Offline CPTBadAss

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #232 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:08:48 »
Yes, the downloads are 3D solid drawings...

These aren't 3D drawings. It's a 3D solid. It looks like a parasolid and it's not parametric. In other words, I can't go in and tweak anything in the .stl file. I just get this 3D representation. Typically you can alter 3D models and change the dimensions. If you can't alter the dimensions, it's called a parasolid or just 3D solid. A drawing is a blueprint with dimensions and tolerances the shop can use to make your parts. Just thought I'd point that out.

Second, I can't open any of the files you sent me in the email other than the .stl file in Autodesk Inventor. Not sure if that's a limitation of Inventor but I thought I'd share.

I couldn't get Inventor to create a drawing with it. Some shops ask for a .dwg file because you can see the dimensions.

What I thought of today is that I'm worried about tolerances. If they aren't accounted for, the plate might not work. Your tool doesn't seem to account for tolerances in the machining process. Have you talked to JD or another person who has made plates to see how they dealt with this? Is it a non-issue? I'm not sure but you should find out if you envision this tool being used by a lot of people. Tolerance build up can turn your drawing, which is "perfect", into a plate in real life that may not work. I assume that what you're using is ok....but I wouldn't want to assume if I were you. Just a thought.

Edited for clarity. English is hard.
« Last Edit: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:57:13 by CPTBadAss »

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #233 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:17:55 »
What I thought of today is that I'm worried about tolerances. If they aren't accounted for, the plate might not work. Your tool doesn't seem to account for tolerances in the machining process. Have you talked to JD or another person who has made plates to see how they dealt with this? Is it a non-issue? I'm not sure but you should find out if you envision this tool being used by a lot of people. Tolerance build up can turn your drawing, which is "perfect", into a plate in real life that may not work. I assume that what you're using is ok....but I wouldn't want to assume if I were you. Just a thought.

He actually addressed this earlier in the thread, when he was deciding which dimensions to use for his holes. The "standard" is 14mm, or 0.551 inches, but most drawings I've seen and made have 13.97mm hole dimensions.

It's actually good to keep bringing this up, so that after testing is done, the topic can be revisited. :)
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Offline CPTBadAss

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #234 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:19:19 »
Ok good. I just wanted to be thorough and I was too lazy to read the whole thread again. Apologies for being lazy but I think understanding tolerances is important to translating a design from CAD to an actual part in real life.

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #235 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:29:00 »
Yes, the downloads are 3D solid drawings...

These aren't 3D drawings. It's a 3D solid. It looks like a parasolid and it's not parametric. In other words, I can't go in and tweak anything in the .stl file. I just get this 3D representation. Typically you can alter 3D models and change the dimensions. If you can't alter the dimensions, it's called a parasolid or just 3D solid. A drawing is a blueprint with dimensions and tolerances the shop can use to make your parts. Just thought I'd point that out.

Second, I can't open any of the files you sent me in the email other than the .stl file in Autodesk Inventor. Not sure if that's a limitation of Inventor but I thought I'd share.

I couldn't get Inventor to create a drawing with it. Some shops ask for a .dwg file because you can see the dimensions.

What I thought of today is that I'm worried about tolerances. If they aren't accounted for, the plate might not work. Your tool doesn't seem to account for tolerances in the machining process. Have you talked to JD or another person who has made plates to see how they dealt with this? Is it a non-issue? I'm not sure but you should find out if you envision this tool being used by a lot of people. Tolerance build up can turn your drawing, which is "perfect", into a plate in real life that may not work. I assume that what you're using is ok....but I wouldn't want to assume if I were you. Just a thought.

Thank you for the clarification.  The STL format is the most lossy of the formats I sent you.  It is troubling that the STL was the only one you were able to open.  Hmmm...

With the STP and BRP files, I know that the dimensions are included in the file because I can measure and add dimensions to the solid once it is imported into FreeCAD (the only cad program I have).  Were you getting errors when you tried to open them or did your software just not support opening that format?  Do you know which formats you can open so I can try to get you a file for you to check that is not as lossy as the STL format?  Maybe IGS or OBJ?

As for tolerances, are you talking about tolerances in the actual drawing?  My drawings are within the tolerances according to the cherry spec, but I have not specified anything specific in my application.  In my application I work with tolerances down to 0.005mm, but I think the cherry spec only has tolerances of 0.05mm.  We will revisit this once I get some test stuff cut...

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #236 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:29:54 »
Ok good. I just wanted to be thorough and I was too lazy to read the whole thread again. Apologies for being lazy but I think understanding tolerances is important to translating a design from CAD to an actual part in real life.

Are you talking about tolerances in the actual drawing or tolerances in the CAD engine itself?

Offline jdcarpe

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #237 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:31:22 »
Ok good. I just wanted to be thorough and I was too lazy to read the whole thread again. Apologies for being lazy but I think understanding tolerances is important to translating a design from CAD to an actual part in real life.

Are you talking about tolerances in the actual drawing or tolerances in the CAD engine itself?

Laser/WJ kerf and part fitment, I believe.
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Offline CPTBadAss

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #238 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:48:31 »
Thank you for the clarification.  The STL format is the most lossy of the formats I sent you.  It is troubling that the STL was the only one you were able to open.  Hmmm...

With the STP and BRP files, I know that the dimensions are included in the file because I can measure and add dimensions to the solid once it is imported into FreeCAD (the only cad program I have).  Were you getting errors when you tried to open them or did your software just not support opening that format?  Do you know which formats you can open so I can try to get you a file for you to check that is not as lossy as the STL format?  Maybe IGS or OBJ?

As for tolerances, are you talking about tolerances in the actual drawing?  My drawings are within the tolerances according to the cherry spec, but I have not specified anything specific in my application.  In my application I work with tolerances down to 0.005mm, but I think the cherry spec only has tolerances of 0.05mm.  We will revisit this once I get some test stuff cut...

I was able to open .stl in Inventor. That's it. I tried the other files you sent (.brp, .igs, .stp) all didn't open. Here is a list of part files I'm able to open in Inventor.



It could just be Inventor's limitations.

Ok good. I just wanted to be thorough and I was too lazy to read the whole thread again. Apologies for being lazy but I think understanding tolerances is important to translating a design from CAD to an actual part in real life.

Are you talking about tolerances in the actual drawing or tolerances in the CAD engine itself?

Laser/WJ kerf and part fitment, I believe.

What JD said. CAD engine tolerances are tolerances that you would build into the drawing. I'm worried about fit and function of the actual part. But it seems like you've already covered a lot of that with JD.

Edited for clarity. English is hard.
« Last Edit: Thu, 08 January 2015, 16:57:02 by CPTBadAss »

Offline vvp

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #239 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 17:35:51 »
I can open FreeCAD generated *.step files in Cubify Design without any problem. That probably means it would work in Geomagic Design without issues too.

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #240 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 17:47:10 »
I've never heard of either of those programs vvp. Could you tell me more about them?

Offline vvp

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #241 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 18:12:26 »
If you recall we discussed CADs and I could not find anything useful and cheap. At the end, I found Cubify Design for 150€ (it is a striped down version of Geomagic Design (which is about 2000€ IIRC)). I believe they were called Alibre before ... or something like that.

http://cubify.com/Products/Design
http://www.geomagic.com/en/products-landing-pages/geomagicdesign

I have a pretty good knowledge about FreeCAD and Cubify Design. Long story short: Cubify is more limited as for as what you can do (what modeling options are available), but it can replay history properly (at least I did not catch it failing yet). Probably the biggest problem with it is that it cannot export to STEP (only STL). FreeCAD has a lot of modeling tools and options which mostly work, it can be scripted in python (this is actually pretty useful), but its history replay and editing sucks.

Edit: Cubify Design could be much more useful if they would allow using constants / variables / expressions on more places.
« Last Edit: Thu, 08 January 2015, 18:15:20 by vvp »

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #242 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 19:58:32 »
If you recall we discussed CADs and I could not find anything useful and cheap. At the end, I found Cubify Design for 150€ (it is a striped down version of Geomagic Design (which is about 2000€ IIRC)). I believe they were called Alibre before ... or something like that.

http://cubify.com/Products/Design
http://www.geomagic.com/en/products-landing-pages/geomagicdesign

I have a pretty good knowledge about FreeCAD and Cubify Design. Long story short: Cubify is more limited as for as what you can do (what modeling options are available), but it can replay history properly (at least I did not catch it failing yet). Probably the biggest problem with it is that it cannot export to STEP (only STL). FreeCAD has a lot of modeling tools and options which mostly work, it can be scripted in python (this is actually pretty useful), but its history replay and editing sucks.

Edit: Cubify Design could be much more useful if they would allow using constants / variables / expressions on more places.
My scripting engine is currently written using FreeCAD.

@cptn:  I am surprised you were not able to open the igs or STP files I sent you. Hmmm.   

Offline Evo_Spec

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #243 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 20:03:41 »
Did i miss the link to the tool or is everyone just smarter than me and understands code and is just talking about that?
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #244 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 20:15:09 »
Did i miss the link to the tool or is everyone just smarter than me and understands code and is just talking about that?
No. I just released a video of the tool a page or so back. It has not been released yet, I am still sorting through some stuff.


Offline Evo_Spec

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #245 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 20:20:15 »
Did i miss the link to the tool or is everyone just smarter than me and understands code and is just talking about that?
No. I just released a video of the tool a page or so back. It has not been released yet, I am still sorting through some stuff.


okay good, i was going around looking for a link thinking it was just having a really hard time finding the link lol
btw, great video, i look forward to seeing this tool and i thank you for doing it!
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Offline tbc

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #246 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 21:23:09 »
on licensing:

isn't this enough? http://choosealicense.com/licenses/no-license/

you're protected by copyright.  anyone who uses your code without permission is in violation and liable to be sued.

i think the only weird issue would be how to handle contributions; i suspect each contribution will have it's own copyright and each contributor has legal leverage to block usage of the software.
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Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #247 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 21:59:58 »
on licensing:

isn't this enough? http://choosealicense.com/licenses/no-license/

you're protected by copyright.  anyone who uses your code without permission is in violation and liable to be sued.

i think the only weird issue would be how to handle contributions; i suspect each contribution will have it's own copyright and each contributor has legal leverage to block usage of the software.

No, I don't think that is realistic for software licensing.  I think I have to go with something more like creative commons where it is free for people for personal use, but not for commercial use.  I have to review the links that were sent to me when we were discussing this a few pages back because others did suggest some potential licenses and I have not had a chance to research them. 

As for contributions, they would be falling under the same licence.  They would not have ownership of the code but would be able to use it for non-commercial uses.  For commercial uses, they would have to contact me and we would have to work out a licensing deal of some kind.  Once I release this and get this sorted out, I will be putting the code on github and people will be able to contribute by submitting pull requests...

Offline sethk_

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #248 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 22:42:34 »
on licensing:

isn't this enough? http://choosealicense.com/licenses/no-license/

you're protected by copyright.  anyone who uses your code without permission is in violation and liable to be sued.

i think the only weird issue would be how to handle contributions; i suspect each contribution will have it's own copyright and each contributor has legal leverage to block usage of the software.

No, I don't think that is realistic for software licensing.  I think I have to go with something more like creative commons where it is free for people for personal use, but not for commercial use.  I have to review the links that were sent to me when we were discussing this a few pages back because others did suggest some potential licenses and I have not had a chance to research them. 

As for contributions, they would be falling under the same licence.  They would not have ownership of the code but would be able to use it for non-commercial uses.  For commercial uses, they would have to contact me and we would have to work out a licensing deal of some kind.  Once I release this and get this sorted out, I will be putting the code on github and people will be able to contribute by submitting pull requests...
I don't know how copyright works, but couldn't you make a terms and agreement that you automatically agree to buy using it?

Offline swill

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Re: swill's plate building tool
« Reply #249 on: Thu, 08 January 2015, 22:44:25 »
on licensing:

isn't this enough? http://choosealicense.com/licenses/no-license/

you're protected by copyright.  anyone who uses your code without permission is in violation and liable to be sued.

i think the only weird issue would be how to handle contributions; i suspect each contribution will have it's own copyright and each contributor has legal leverage to block usage of the software.

No, I don't think that is realistic for software licensing.  I think I have to go with something more like creative commons where it is free for people for personal use, but not for commercial use.  I have to review the links that were sent to me when we were discussing this a few pages back because others did suggest some potential licenses and I have not had a chance to research them. 

As for contributions, they would be falling under the same licence.  They would not have ownership of the code but would be able to use it for non-commercial uses.  For commercial uses, they would have to contact me and we would have to work out a licensing deal of some kind.  Once I release this and get this sorted out, I will be putting the code on github and people will be able to contribute by submitting pull requests...
I don't know how copyright works, but couldn't you make a terms and agreement that you automatically agree to buy using it?
Honestly I don't know, I need to do a bunch of reading before I will know anything on this subject. I have never had to worry about this before.