Glossary

Between 3D design, machining and coding there can be a lot of terminology that can be unfamiliar or confusing.

This is a list of terms, any alternatives that they may go by, and descriptions of each.

There are a few items with similar names that deserve a little extra clarification:

• CAM (Computer-Aided-Machining) vs Cam (Camera)

  • CAM will always be capitalized when referring to Machining / Manufacturing

  • Camera will not be abbreviated to minimize confusion, as Fabex also uses the Camera for some functions

• Material (stock) vs Material (Shader)

  • Material in the Fabex [ Material ] panel refers to the stock material you will be milling, e.g. wood, metal, plastic

  • Material can also refer to Blender’s Shader Materials, a 3D rendering option

• Operator vs Operation

  • Operator refers to a Blender class that executes functions

  • Operation refers to a CAM Operation - settings that will be used to calculate toolpaths

Term	(aka)	Description
Bridges	Tabs	Small strips of material left uncut during Cutout operations to keep the workpiece in place.
Overcuts	Fillets, Dog-Bones	Excess material that is left around corners to form slots.
Path	Toolpath, CAMpath	The route the Cutter will move to
Object		The parent Blender data-type: mesh, curve, text, camera, light are all objects
Mesh		A 3D Object, made of vertices, edges and faces (polygons), can be used for CAM Operations
Curve	Bezier Curve	A 2D / 3D Object, made of points
Text	Font	A 2D / 3D Object, based on a provided font file
Silhouette	Outline
Bas Relief	Low Relief	A shallow carving, like the face on a coin.
Ambient
Radius
Position Definitions
Skin
Lead-in, Lead-out
Lissajous
Hypotrochoid	Spirograph
CrossHatch
Interlock
Curve Doubles	Duplicate Points
Intarsion
Convex Hull
Inverse Milling
Pocket Surfaces
Flutes
Origin
Medial Axis
Array
CAM
Operation
Operator
Chipload
Engagement
Work Area
Limits
STL
PLY
OBJ
.blend
Material
Shader
Python
Github