looking for options on software to run natively in a Mac environment, something like vcarve or aspire thanks in advance pros and cons for any software greatly appreciated
You may have to use fusion or parallels to run windows. There is Mac software, but I don’t think vectric has any. yiu can use fusion 360, blender, f-engrave, or a number of the cloud based solutions (like easel). I think Carbide pro might be a minor competitor to vcarve, it I don’t have either of those. I do have a Mac as well, for the trial versions of aspire/vcarve I had to use windows though.
It is too bad Vcarve doesn't work for a Mac. It is so user friendly. I can drop an .stl file from thingiverse into my stockpiece, generate tool paths, and be cutting in minutes vs. Fusion 360s modifications I would have to do manually, as well as manually generating tool paths.
It's not quite as intuitive or easy as vcarve, or for that matter as good,, but both 2d and 3d adaptive operations will try to autogenerate tool paths.
Yes. There are a whole lot of steps to go through. I am not trying to put down Fusion360. I love it and use it nearly everyday. The fact that Autodesk lets us use it for free is amazing and I am grateful. But once I purchased a $59 Estlcam license for all the advanced probing methods/tool change capabilities, I also gave its CAM functions a try and have never looked back. It too is so much easier -- in my opinion -- but there are a couple tricks you need to learn. In fact for simple 2.5D plates, I do not even make a 3D model in Fusion 360 anymore because it is unnecessary.
Honestly, I don't think Fusion was ever designed for what many of us do with it. For basic carving and stuff like that, it can do it, but it is not what it was ever designed for. I just wish there were more open source products like V-Carve or Aspire. F-Engrave works.. but it is not intuitive, and I don't think it has had any development for 3 or 4 years.
