Computer-Aided Design

Before you can make anything with a computer-controlled machine, you’ll have to “tell” the machine what you’d like to fabricate. Any object you like to fabricate needs a 2D and/or 3D design file to start from, which you can either make by yourself or grab online. Before being usable by machines, data in the file is converted to a toolpath, telling the machine what to do to fabricate the desired object. It’s like converting bits (of the model file) to atoms (of the fabricated object).