This is a tool for doing high-quality laser etching with EMC2. It uses some fancy HAL scripting and a custom file format to accurately control the beam without affecting motion. This can’t be done with g-code alone, as currently implemented in EMC, because the beam on/off commands will break up the movement commands and the EMC motion planner can’t put them back together into continuous motion. Experience shows that this makes a huge difference when etching maleable materials like wood and acrylic.
Graster uses a custom EMC configuration that is machine-specific and thus not included in this repository. A sample configuration for the Hacklab.TO laser can be found at:
github.com/jedediah/hacklab-engraver
At present, there is no generic distribution of this configuration, but it has been succesfully adapted to other machines with a bit of tweaking. Sharing such adaptations on Github or elsewhere would no doubt be appreciated by others.
WARNING: You CANNOT touch-off for a Graster job. The HAL script works strictly in homed joint coordinates and will be very confused if the machine is in the wrong place. EMC limitations prevent this from being fixed or even detected.