Prototyping: Layout designer for laser-ready SVGs

[bearcat]

Hey y'all

i've made some improvements to the keyboard-layout-editor, notably SVG export, and an option for the squirrelly fancy holes that let the diehards take the key housing off. See picture of my Atreus-like design i've been fiddling with:



With this you should be able to design whatever, throw it in inkscape and put an outline around it, and get it laser cut at your local loonybin/makerspace. Should make it a good bit easier to rapidly prototype

I still need to support:
- stabs
- off-center keys (caps et al)
- weird things like ISO enter -- not really sure if those should just be added after the fact in inkscape or what.

Anyway, i'd love to give a pull request to ijprest so everyone can play with it, but he hasn't been on github in half a year and there's no license information in his repo, so i don't know if i'll be able to... Anyone know where to find him?

[Vierax]

Nice improvement, these are very useful features! No idea how to contact him : Isn't it possible to communicate on github or isn't he registered on GH, DT?
In case you're not able to contact him, don't trash this work it's really worthy.

[freschu]

Wow, great idea! Everytime I've been playing with the keyboard-layout-editor I thought to myself how great it would be if I could turn this into a real thing right now. And "fancy holes" is much more amusing than "cherry mx plate mount switch holes"

[Findecanor]

Use of squirrely holes instead of H-like holes don't solve everything. Stabilisers are directional, so you would need to add a setting for each key's switch direction anyway.

It is not really "laser-ready": You will still need to add boundaries, points for mounting to the case and use the layout to design edges.
I would also prefer export to DXF. It can be read by Inkscape, and also by CAD programs that don't read SVG.

[ne0phyte]

Slightly OT: I hacked a basic dxf export into my crappy editor (http://ne0.cc/laygenV2/#L8eoK ) but its still missing support for space bar stab holes.

[bearcat]

Use of squirrely holes instead of H-like holes don't solve everything. Stabilisers are directional, so you would need to add a setting for each key's switch direction anyway.

sure. I don't really care about the weird holes because i'm not really interested in mods. And adding directionality to the keys is a bit more logic than i felt like doing... but the code's there, if you're so inclined!

It is not really "laser-ready": You will still need to add boundaries, points for mounting to the case and use the layout to design edges.

Yeah, that's why i said:

With this you should be able to design whatever, throw it in inkscape and put an outline around it...

And of course building a case is beyond the scope of the tool...

As for DXF, that fileformat doesn't look like much fun But hey ne0's tool does it! I don't have anything that consumes dxf (for now) so i can't really test. If/when i upgrade my cam software i'll revisit it.

Slightly OT: I hacked a basic dxf export into my crappy editor (http://ne0.cc/laygenV2/#L8eoK) but its still missing support for space bar stab holes.

Cool! Didn't know this one existed. Really nice! And i love that THKB...gotta build one of my own.

Wow, great idea! Everytime I've been playing with the keyboard-layout-editor I thought to myself how great it would be if I could turn this into a real thing right now. And "fancy holes" is much more amusing than "cherry mx plate mount switch holes"

Thanks! It's here on github, you can clone it and use it -- but see the unknown license issues above. I think if it's on github as a public repo, it's ok, but IANAL.

[iandoug]

bearcat wrote:
===================
Thanks! It's here on github, you can clone it and use it -- but see the unknown license issues above. I think if it's on github as a public repo, it's ok, but IANAL.
===================

I presume you are aware of http://builder.swillkb.com/ ?

Between KLE and his script, things got a bit mangled with my ergo design.

Anyway I've also decided to have a go at fixing a few things with KLE, do you mind if I use your version as starting point?

Thanks, Ian

[iandoug]

Thanks! It's here on github, you can clone it and use it -- but see the unknown license issues above. I think if it's on github as a public repo, it's ok, but IANAL.

He makes the source available but has a Copyright in the main page, so I'm also wondering about the status.

Since we have no way to update the live version, I was thinking of sticking any improved versions on a website for general use.

It would be nice if we had a few more presets to play with, it anyone feels like sharing their designs ...

thanks, Ian