EasyCarve is COMING SOON

[FabLab Wageningen]

EasyCarve has no ability to assemble or modify designs. It does, though, provide our most accessible way to-date to generate simple toolpaths directly from any of the single models in our Design & Make 3D clipart collection!

And that means in my modest opinion that it is in no way even close to a functional replacement for VCarvePro or Aspire. If this means that more people will use 'Design & Make' because making becomes more easy for them, that seems absolutely fine by me. But probably no-one currently in this discussion thread will use it.

Regarding the subscription issue:
The Makerspace version is already subscription -based. Do I personally like that ? No. I had my share of experiences with software that was sudenly downfunctioned and web-based 'for your convenience' - yes I'm talking to you, Trimble, Autodesk et al.

But as far as Vectric's VCarvePro Makerspace Edition goes: it works. It works just fine. It can be done properly and for the moment I trust Vectric will do a good job here.

Marcel.

[Mark Jones]

A few other things to consider as well. Online doesn't work if you're on the road and your internet is (even in the 100 per night RV parks not up to speed to handle online connections reliably) without the spin, click, crapola my smooth design process just went into a wait and see and it becomes very much like what I referred to in my 2 weeks training rant that I hated as I spent way to much time on a system that is not perfect. Many times I used to have to drive 2 miles to a hill top to get my online Cable prints to show up so I could drive back to the actual location and figure out where it was all going south. Sometimes I made several trips to that hill top.

Now keep in mind if you're in a fiber fed stationary location and you have unlimited bandwidth then online is the greatest thing you ever had. All the issues of getting a program to run on a stand alone PC is no longer a major issue as it's all going through the web browser. Updates are almost invisible and you can see what everyone is doing at anytime. Want to over write the GUI and make it look the way you want it to look. BAM it's easy. Being online they could wipe your desktop and you loose all your cheat sheets from many years of work in them. They even did this to our Bosses Computers.

42 years I went into every kind of business, home, remote metering station and dealt with connections issues. Bottom line is when it's down YOUR DOWN. I have very reliable internet at my house. Yet the whole town goes down once in a while perhaps once a year average for a few hours to 24 hours. In a business this can mean loss of sales and customers.

I forgot to mention Sketchup. There are many more. Tinker CAD...ie Subscription based and on the web. Even at my house it was subject to server delay and very frustrating to say the least when designing stuff. I just looked around on my desktop. i have moved that Sketchup link to seldom use area.

I design all my stuff in Aspire now. House Plans, 3d printed parts, CNC and laser projects. Wonderful program. It's on my PC and it works GREAT! I know they pledge to keep it that way but trust me. "I will not pardon Hunter B." Uhuh! Sure!!!

Can't wait to see the new program for easy carving. It could be fun. In a perfect connection world It may work as promised!

[Leo]

Easy Carve is decent for those that don't have ability to create a simple 3D carving. Even to the point of doing it on a MAC, or an Android tablet.

Generate the code and plug it into a machine. EASY You don't even need Vectric software.

I don't like subscriptions either but I am on a few because there is no other choice. Software companies are going in that direction. If I had my druthers - I would choose non-subscription based every time.

[FabLab Wageningen]

I only have 25+ years of experience in software, so hardly enough to change Mark's or Ted's diapers

It is - at least for me - incredibly hard to assess the true price of software and how to bill this. And this will differ immensely from case to case and from user base to user base. Ted has a very good example why subscription can be a good idea in some cases, but on the other side 'really' owing software has it's pro's too; certainly if the sotware supplier decides to downgrade the software or raise the fee disproportianally.

@ Mark:
I understand your issues with web-based software. As a SketchUp user I absolutely positively dislike Trimble. But let's get real: how many persons are in your hypothetical RV park with no Internet but a fixed CNC machine ?


Marcel.

[adze_cnc]

Hmm. This software is not designed for people like me so I will hate it and point out why it's not designed for me and why I will never subscribe to it...

If EasyCarve, as an implementation, is rubbish (web-based tech & pricing model, etc.) then it will fail. If it doesn't fail then more power to the Vectric folk.

Since VCarve got (almost) all of Cut3D's features I haven't used it much. But it has proved useful for a four-sided job and a few other jobs the would be tiresome to set up in VCarve. I could shake my head and wonder why anyone would purchase it but it does have utility.

If others can ramble on then so can I...

[Mark Jones]

Hum. I spent 8 days on the beach last year... well my wife did. It was 100 degrees outside. The Colie and I would go down to the beach and check on the wife ever few hours and bring fresh cold drinks etc. We were so close to the water I could see her out the RV window. In the process of all that fun I did work on some of my Aspire projects. No CNC machine that I owned with in 14 hours of me. Yet in my simple life and lots of time. I made some mods on several of my designs. Do a search for markjonesranger on youtube and you will see I have lots of irons in the fire.

My look a like 70's to 80's website has had according to my web logs has hundreds of thousands of visits over the past 20 years. One would be surprised how many people search for Pinewood derby car designs. GRIN! While my website has no bling, no appearing and disappearing windows and nothing for sale it meets the need of it's intended purpose. Promote Royal Rangers (Church Scouting Group) in So. Missouri.

I am the Communications Coordinator for our District Royal Rangers. I have over 450 active people across the state that often visit the site for resources relating to Royal Rangers. All Free. This is the main reason I have Aspire and the CNC machine. I make hundreds of projects each year for fundraisers, plaques, signs, awards, gifts, boxes all kinds not for profit.

Today I put up a video on taking Fifteen 16 to 20" wide logs 47" long and rotating stickered air dried lumber so I can get these logs resawn and stickered for lumber for these Royal Ranger projects. I use a Resaw Sled on a 10 foot table that has a auto shut off winch and remote switches. It's Sunday tomorrow so after Church I may resaw a few logs. Nothing professional here just someone that can get er done as the proof is in the pudding.



I do hope those that will benefit from Easycarve will indeed benefit. Vectric Products work very well and I really enjoy using them. I apologize for anyone that feels offended by my opinions here. It's in my nature to tell the truth of what I think. Please delete anything you feel you don't agree with.