BeverDAM manual

Getting started

BeverDAM turns a Rhino part into a 3-axis CNC program inside Rhino. It works in a docked panel: you choose the job, the passes and the tools, compute, check the result in the viewport, and write the G-code.

Install

Close Rhino. Copy the folder for your Rhino (net7.0 for Rhino 8, rhino7 for Rhino 7) somewhere permanent.
Start Rhino and drag BeverDAM.rhp onto the window (or Tools › Options › Plug-ins › Install). Windows may block downloaded files: right-click › Properties › Unblock first.
Add-ons: copy each add-on's files of the same runtime next to BeverDAM.rhp and restart Rhino. Always take the plugin and the add-ons from the same zip: Advanced › Add-ons shows every add-on's version and warns when one does not match.
Type the command BeverDAM: the panel opens.

The panel

Tabs: Job (what to machine), Passes (how), Results (compute, check, simulate), Output (G-code), Presets (tools, kits, materials, machines), Advanced (panel, add-ons, licence, colours, fine tuning). The step bar under the tabs (Part › Rough › Rest › Finish › G-code) shows where the job stands; click a step to open it.

Messages: errors (red), warnings (amber) and suggestions / information (blue) open in a small window beside the panel (never over its pages) and stay until you press OK; a new message joins the open window. Hover a tile for a moment: a card shows its picture bigger, what it does, what it is best for and when to avoid it.

A first job in five steps

Job: Job type 3D part, click the Part square and pick the part (a closed polysurface). Choose the material and the tool kit.
Choose the surface quality and the stock; press Suggest settings: tools, strategies, depths and stepovers are proposed from the part's geometry, the material and the kit (see Suggest below).
Passes: check the roughing, rest pass and finishing strategies (tiles) and their tools.
Results: Compute toolpaths. Rhino stays usable; Esc or Cancel stops. Read the warnings, play the simulation.
Output: check the machine and controller, then Write G-code.

The 3D job (Job tab)

Job type: 3D part, 2D sheet, or Make a part (an add-on that builds the part itself, e.g. a relief from an image).

The job row has four squares: Part (pick / zoom), Area (the whole part, or only inside a closed curve), Material (its cutting data, tolerance and image) and Tool kit (the tools in their slots T1, T2 ...).

The area curve limits the job, not the tool's moves: the tool centre may go up to its radius beyond the curve, so the paths stay continuous along it. Stock points, rest zones and leftovers are judged only inside the curve and on the part.

Surface quality

Draft, Standard or Fine: the scallop height the finishing stepover is computed for.

Suggest settings

Measures the part: its size and depth, slopes and walls, inside radii, its symmetry (left / right, front / back and around the vertical axis) and the shape of its outline (straight, circular, elliptic or free curves, and the main straight direction). Then:

round or axially symmetric parts get rings (roughing and finishing), or a waterline when walled;
free smooth curves on freeform faces get Flow lines when the BeverDAM 3D add-on is installed - otherwise it is mentioned and the best available strategy is chosen;
straight parts get parallel paths along their main edges (or the long side);
a round tool on a curved part with walls or steep slopes gets Offset Bever (Offset Finish add-on): touch-ups, then one smooth 3D pass on the exact tool-centre surface; other round-tool cases use the Offset patterns when installed;
the rest pass is switched on when the roughing tool leaves corners the finishing tool cannot take at once;
tool advice: a tool from the library that would reach the fillets or the depth, a bigger roughing tool for a large part, sharp inside edges - you decide, nothing is changed in the kit.

The message window shows a short summary of what was set; Details opens the reasons. Deeper analysis (beside Suggest) first tells the expected time and asks; then it runs coarse trials of the candidate roughings and computes every finishing strategy that fits (the core pattern and each installed and licensed special strategy: Offset Bever, Offset patterns, Flow lines) on your part, each with its rest pass, G-code and checks. The finishings are ranked by quality first (the stock left on the part, a cut into the part last), then the machine time; the compute time only decides between equals. The best roughing and finishing are set in the job; the ranking stays on the Job page, where Use takes another. Esc cancels.

Spot analysis

For the place that matters most: Spot analysis proposes spots from the geometry (the tightest inside radius, the tallest wall, the deepest floor, a sharp inside edge) or takes a rectangle you draw in the viewport. Analyse this spot computes every candidate combination for real in the spot, at the job's own tolerance, and lists for each the time, the stock it leaves, its lifts and red alerts, with its pros (green) and cons (orange). Use applies one to the job.

Stock and zero

Stock: the part's box (its borders are not machined), the box plus a margin around it, or the box of an object you pick.
Stock above the part: material on top that roughing removes.
X0 Y0: the front left corner or the centre; Z0: the stock top or the part bottom. Floor: the lowest Z the tools go to.

Grain

For materials that are not the same in every direction (wood, plywood, composites). Materials with a grain switch it on when chosen (Presets › Materials › Has a grain).

Grain angle: the direction of the grain on the table, from X, seen from above.
Parallel paths along the grain: parallel roughing / finishing and zig-zag clearing run at the grain's angle.
Lower feed across the grain: cutting moves more than 45° off the grain at the set percentage of the feed (less tear-out). No fixed value exists: find yours with test cuts.
Last finishing pass along the grain: of crossed finishing (X + Y), the pass along the grain is cut last.

Passes: roughing, rest pass, finishing

Each pass has its tool (Choose… from the kit, Edit… its profile and cutting data) and a strategy tile. Add-on strategies appear in sections of their own under the core tiles.

Roughing

The stock is cleared level by level down to the allowance. Rings follow every pocket of a level: they start at its walls and at the edge of the job area and move inwards a stepover at a time (computed from the exact sections, never leaving the free area), so a pocket inside a raised ring (e.g. a fin around a cockpit) gets its own rings; where a pocket ends between two rings a half-step ring is added, and the report says that every free point of every level lies within the tool radius of a ring.

With rings, Inwards starts at the border of each area and goes to its middle, Outwards the opposite; the levels below alternate so each one starts where the last ended.

Rest pass (optional)

Between roughing and finishing: removes what the roughing left where the finishing tool alone would cut too deep. The 3D rest strategies step down by themselves where the roughing tool could not enter (a pocket narrower than it): raised copies of their own paths, top down, before the pass. Where only the finishing tool fits (the rest runs at the allowance, as a tool bigger by twice the allowance), the finishing steps down the same way just before itself. The rest tool auto (default) is the finishing tool - or, when the finishing tool is a ball, a flat (else a bull) of the same diameter from the kit: a ball takes the rest with its slow centre and leaves cusps on the floors.

Finishing

The finishing tool follows the part's surface in 3D.

X + Y: X everywhere, Y only on slopes steeper than the setting. Waterline: outlines at constant heights, for steep walls.

Results: compute, warnings, simulation

Compute toolpaths runs every pass, orders the travels, writes the G-code in memory and checks it. The step bar turns green (✓), orange (!) or red (✗).

Warnings (W) and problems (E)

Messages (errors, warnings, Suggest results, notes) open in a window beside the panel, sized to their text; new ones join it; it closes with OK. After every Compute and Write the full report opens there too (each operation, written or not and why, the warnings); it stays in Output › Full report.

Numbered in machining order. Each has a Show button: the viewport zooms to it and the timeline jumps there; hover a spot for its full text. Yellow = information; red = blocking (writing it anyway asks for confirmation and marks the file OWNRISK).

Only real dangers are warned: raw stock deeper than the tool takes, a rapid into stock, the tool touching the part - for example under a wall that leans past vertical (a negative slope, such as a hole tilted with a sloped face). A thin skin on a wall that the next tool takes with its flank, within its flute cutting length (side cut), and inside corners smaller than the tool (the chosen tool's limit) are not warnings. The report says what each figure measures: deep (stock under the tool, against the limit), tall (a skin cut by the flank) and the feed through stock already cleared.

Part check: after every compute each move of the final toolpaths, rapids and links included, is measured against the part itself with the tool's own shape (exact NURBS heights). A move whose tool holds part material deeper than the tolerance - both under its surface and inside its side (a wall merely touched is no cut) - is a red alert CUTS THE PART at its place, listed first: do not machine that G-code - change the tool, the allowance, the strategy or the area and compute again.

Acceptance limit: how far a finished move may touch the part and still be accepted - set per material in the library (wood 0.07 mm by default; metals, plastics and foam use the tolerance) and, for one job, in Advanced (0 = the material's). A touch up to it is a note; only beyond it is it a red alert. The toolpaths and their tolerance do not change.

While computing, the live card shows the whole computation (percent and the phase n of N) with the phase's own bar, and lists each warning as soon as its pass ends; Cancel (or Esc) stops it.

The same check proves every link between two paths before it is written: a link riding the part is raised where the check finds the part, else replaced by a retract (the report counts both). Every sharp edge of the part (two faces meeting at an angle) is kept out at every level below it, so thin crests are never grazed.

Operations: warnings and checks

In fields: Whole job, Roughing, Rest, Finishing (2D: Operations) and Visual filters. Each operation has one line: its tool, tool changes, and its depth check (✓ deepest cut / limit, or ✗ with the remedy); under it its passes, each shown or hidden, with their warnings stepped through one by one. Visual filters: Ahead / Stock, ◀ pass / pass ▶ and ▲ level / level ▼ (the simulation jumps to the start of the previous / next pass or level), Rapids on / off (off by default), then All / None / Clear.

Simulation

Under the moves slider two rows of boxes give where the tool tip is at that moment - Rhino X | Y | Z and G-code X | Y | Z (X0 Y0 and Z0 as set in Output), the same numbers your controller shows - and the line below gives the line of the G-code file that ends the move; it turns red with the alert's text when the move carries a red alert. The tool is labelled with its number and name. Click a red or yellow mark in the viewport (or step with ◀ ▶ in the review) and the simulation moves there, tool in position; a mark clears as soon as the simulation leaves it. In the review (Results), the item last selected with ◀ ▶ / Show stays written under All passes with its place and tool tip in both frames and its G-code line.

The real tool shape moves along the G-code at a speed relative to the machine time, set on the speed slider (½x, 1x = real time, 2x, 3x … 200x). The time ruler above the moves slider shows the whole job (marks every few minutes, hours) with the passes in their colours (Advanced › Preview colours); click it to jump. At every tool change, and when a pass colour first appears, the simulation pauses while the paths just finished fade out; levels (roughing, waterline) fade one by one so only the level being cut is drawn - a faded level never comes back. During the rest pass the stock the roughing left beyond what the finishing takes is shown in the rest colour and disappears as it is cut. Stock (on by default) shows what is left beyond the expected (green within the tolerance, turning a little yellow above and a little violet below; yellow to red with the stock left beyond it; violet to magenta where something cut deeper than the tolerance); Ahead (off by default) shows the paths still to come.

Output: machine, controller and G-code

Hold-down: after Compute, the Output page and the G-code header give the height clamps or other hold-downs must stay under: the lowest rapid that crosses the stock above its top (with low retracts, their clearance in Advanced; else the safe height).

Machine and controller: the controller dialect (UCCNC / generic, GRBL 1.1, Mach3 / Mach4, LinuxCNC), spindle (automatic M3 S, or by hand with a stop), tool change (by hand with a stop, or automatic T M6 - not for GRBL), decimals, line numbers, comment style. These come from the machine profile (Presets) and can be changed for the job.

Arcs (G2 / G3): curves are written as arcs where the path lies on a circle within the pass's own tolerance, so the controller keeps the feed on curves (many short lines make it slow down at every joint). Constant velocity (G64) (not GRBL) asks the controller to blend the moves; off = the controller's own setting. Arc centres are relative to the arc's start (I J), the form every supported controller reads.

Safety and travel: safe height, approach, travel order, links. In 3D passes (rest, finishing) two path ends close together are joined riding the part at the feed - a round trip instead of a lift to the safe height.

Diagnostic heights (Safety and travel): heights separated by ';' (e.g. 5; 12). After each compute the keep-out curves of every pass at those heights (what the tool centre must not enter) are drawn on the layer BeverDAM::Diagnostics, replacing the previous ones - to see, when a report is needed, where a pass thinks the part is. Leave it empty for normal work.

Write G-code… opens the file dialog (a name proposed next to the Rhino file); an existing file is replaced only after your confirmation. Write uses the toolpaths already computed; if a setting that shapes them changed, it says which and asks (compute again, or write the toolpaths shown). Writing at your own risk writes the G-code shown, with its alerts noted, without computing again.

Before writing, every move is replayed against the stock with the tool's real shape: too deep a cut for the tool, the flute or free length exceeded, or a rapid into stock is reported.

Presets: tools, kits, materials, machines

Tool library: flat, bull, ball, V-bit and drill tools with their full profile (diameter, corner, flutes, flute and free length, stick-out) and own stepdown / stepover if wanted.
Tool kits: up to 8 tools in slots T1-T8 (the rack or the changer). A material proposes its kit. Built in: Wood set, Wood set 4 mm, Plastics kit, Non-ferrous bits, 2D set, Thread mills (single-profile 60° mills Ø2.3 for M3 up to Ø9.4 for M12, each with the largest pitch it cuts), V-carve set (30° / 60° / 90° / 120° V-bits). Thread milling takes thread mills only.
Materials: cutting speed, chip load, depths, the finishing tolerance, the image, and whether it has a grain.
Machine: profiles - choose one, or New (copy) and adapt: controller, spindle, tool change, spindle wait after M3 (G4 dwell; GRBL and LinuxCNC read it in seconds, UCCNC and Mach3 as set in the controller - choose seconds or milliseconds), air / coolant (M7 or M8, M9 before every spindle stop), and your own G-code at the start, at every tool change and at the end ({T} = tool number, {S} = rpm, {TOOL} = tool name). Feeds, rpm range, accuracy and travels too. Save machines keeps them in Rhino's settings.

Job templates (Advanced)

The whole setup of a kind of job - strategies, tools and kit, material, depths, stepovers, quality, stock rules, grain, output - saved under a name; the Passes tab offers them first. Nothing of one file is kept in a template (picked stock, file name, picked objects).

Add-ons (Advanced)

Listed in three parts by the licence on this computer: included with your licence, installed - needs a Pro licence and optional add-ons (not installed); hover an item for its card. Applying or removing a licence updates the list and the tiles at once.

The 2D job (sheets)

Job type 2D sheet: a sheet (by its sizes, the box of a picked object, or a picked shape whose top is the stock as it is now) and a list of operations in machining order. Add operation… opens a window with the operations of the installed add-ons; each operation has its tool(s), its picked objects (curves, closed curves or points) and its settings. Compute toolpaths is right below the list.

Add-on BeverDAM Offset Finish (Pro)

Finishing computed on the tool-centre surface of the part: fast, with every pass checked on the exact NURBS.

Offset Bever: touch-ups only where the stock left exceeds the finishing tool, then a complete pass of smooth 3D paths.

Add-on BeverDAM 3D (Pro)

Flow lines: the paths follow each face's own NURBS directions (auto = the longer way, or U, V, U then V), spaced by the 3D stepover. Pick faces in the pass card (none = all faces). Option: the multi-pencil after them.
Pencil (multi): the creases and corners where the finishing tool touches two surfaces, plus passes beside them: a number per side, or as many as needed to take what a bigger tool before left. Sides steeper than the setting get none (walls are left to waterline / contours).

Add-on BeverDAM 2D (Pro)

Profile cut-out

Holes: peck drilling (chip break or full retract), helical boring, thread milling.
Carving: V-carve (sharp corners, flat bottom cleared by a second tool), inlays (female pocket + male plug), engraving along curves, carving along a 3D path.
Text: Rhino text as single-line engraving, V-carved outlines, or along a 3D path.
Edges: chamfer / deburr with a V-bit.
Flat parts: profile cut-out with tabs, pockets with islands, nesting several parts on the sheet (the layout can be baked).
Stock / spoilboard: facing the sheet, surfacing the spoilboard.

Add-on BeverDAM Special (Pro)

Recessed logo

Relief from an image (Job type › Make a part)

Choose the image (PNG, JPG, BMP, TIF): it shows faintly in the viewport where the relief will lie.
Optionally pick a closed curve: the relief is kept inside it (the image fitted over it).
Set the width (without a boundary), the relief height, the base under it, the detail spacing and the smoothing; white is high (or Dark is high).
Build the part: a NURBS solid on the layer BeverDAM::Relief becomes the job's part - machine it with the 3D strategies.

A relief needing more than 2000 control points per side (or one million in all) is refused with the spacing to use.

Recessed logo (2D operation)

The logo's closed curves (letters keep their holes) are pocketed with the first tool, then the second, smaller detail tool takes only what the first could not reach (corners, thin strokes).

Editions and licence

Free edition: non-commercial use, everything computes and previews, the G-code is written for a stock up to 150 × 150 × 30 mm (measured to 0.1 mm; the whole stock counts, not the job area). Standard removes the size limit; Pro adds the Pro add-ons (their tiles show locked without it). A licence holds two computers and your Rhino account; enter its file or key in Advanced › Licence. The licence is to use the software as it is.

Troubleshooting and warnings

Too deep: A move takes more depth than the tool's limit, usually where the roughing tool could not enter: switch the rest pass on (it steps down there), use a smaller roughing tool or a smaller stepdown.
Part not valid: Rhino itself reports the object as invalid (the message gives Rhino's reason): run Check, SelBadObjects and ExtractBadSrf in Rhino, repair, and pick it again.
MAX DEPTH / free length: A wall deeper than the tool's free length: the holder would touch. Use a longer tool or limit the depth.
Rapid into stock: A rapid move would touch material: never run such a file without checking it.
Stock left: Places the tools could not reach (too narrow for the tool): shown in the stock viewer.
Machine limits: The job is larger than the travels, or the tool and stock do not fit under the spindle (warning only).
Add-on missing / old: A strategy saved in the file is not installed, or an add-on is not the plugin's version: copy the add-ons from the same zip as the plugin and restart Rhino.
Curves run slower than straight lines: Switch on Output › Arcs (G2 / G3).
Logs: Advanced › Diagnostics › Open the logs: the run log of each computation, with every technical detail.