Interfacing a computer aided design tool with a multi-function numerical machine

The use of Computer Numerical Control machines is commonplace in industry. Rapid strides are being made in customizing the hardware, but the computer aided design tools which program these machines are not being indigenously developed. There are several open source alternatives popular among the maker community, which mostly fail in giving a solution from design to printing. In this paper, we cover a project undertaken to build an end to end solution without the use of proprietary software. Open source alternatives are pieced together and the missing pieces are custom built to form this toolchain. Industry standard modes of communication and medium of storage are used to keep the toolchain flexible to extensions.