Around the cut
The production tools that surround the toolpath — lay parts out on stock, size an imported model, manage your tooling, and post clean, machine-ready G-code.
Nesting
Cutting more than one part from a plate? Nesting lays out multiple copies — or several different parts — on one piece of stock, so you run a full plate in one setup instead of one part at a time.
- Grid auto-array — rows × columns at a spacing Takshak derives from the part, or a manual placement table.
- Per-copy rotation — offset and Z-rotation on each instance for tighter packing.
- Viewport editing — the master shows solid, every copy a live ghost you can drag, rotate on a snap-ring, and multi-select.
- Multiple parts — different parts laid out together on one plate.
- Live checks — part-to-part overlap flagged as you move, and plate-edge violations too once you give it a plate size.
- Shared tool-changes — G-code multiplied per copy, one change per tool: a five-up plate still changes to each tool once.
- 3-axis — nesting is not offered on a rotary project.
Rescaling
Imported a model that came in at the wrong size? One scale factor, applied to the whole part — the fix for STL files that carry no units, often authored in centimetres and read as millimetres, arriving ten times too small.
- Uniform — the same factor on X, Y and Z together.
- Auto-detect on import — a unit-less STL is checked for a cm→mm / inch→mm mismatch, and the correction offered.
- Manual any time — presets ½×, 2×, 10×, 25.4× and ÷25.4, with a live readout of the resulting size.
- Clean re-run — recognition and operations rebuild on the resized geometry, so nothing carries stale dimensions.
Tool library
Your tooling lives in one reusable library that persists between projects. Assign a tool to an operation and Takshak drives the toolpath from it; the numbers a tool carries are its defaults, and the material library adjusts them for what you are actually cutting.
- Fourteen tool types — end mill, ball, tapered ball, lens (circle-segment), bull-nose, corner-round, drill, chamfer, countersink, engraver, face mill, thread mill, T-slot and dovetail.
- 151 tools seeded — the full standard catalogue, every category, metric and inch. You can cut on day one.
- Full tool data — diameter, flutes, and default spindle, feed, plunge, stepdown / stepover.
- Tool numbers and comp registers — the T word your machine calls each tool by, plus cutter (D#) and length (H#) offsets, carried through into the posted G-code. Unnumbered tools are numbered by first use and flagged in the program's tool table.
- Live propagation — edit a tool and every operation that uses it updates.
- Shape preview — a live tool diagram as you edit.
Machine library
Your machines live in their own library — each one holding the control it runs alongside the physical facts about it. Pick the machine and the right post follows, with the features your control does not have kept out of the file rather than posted and hoped for.
- Its post — any built-in dialect, or one you authored yourself.
- Rotary axis — whether it has one, its letter (A / B / C), the axis it turns about, and the sign convention per axis.
- Limits — maximum spindle speed and feed rate, and X / Y / Z travel.
- Heights — a default safe Z, and the machine's own retract height.
- Tool changer — manual or automatic.
- Control options — tool-centre-point (G43.4 / TRAORI), extended work offsets (G54.1 P / G154 P), rigid tapping, through-spindle coolant.
- Spindle spin-up — a wait after the spindle starts, so the first cut meets a tool already at speed.
Material library
A tool's speeds and feeds are only half the answer — the other half is what you are cutting. Set the stock material once in Setup, and every operation you create starts from numbers that suit it. The same tool cuts aluminium and steel at the right numbers, without you rewriting the tool.
Precedence runs one way: material × tool → tool defaults → operation default. A material only ever supplies a starting value.
- Carbide and HSS — separate surface speeds, so the tool material is part of the answer.
- Chip load by diameter — a curve across cutter sizes, so a 2 mm cutter and a 12 mm cutter are not asked to take the same bite.
- Per-cut factors — finishing, drilling, plunge, stepdown and stepover each scale on their own.
- A worked example — pick a cutter and it reads back the rpm, feed, plunge and chip load you would actually get, live as you edit.
- Never overrides you — a field you have touched is never overwritten.
- Eight materials seeded — two aluminiums, brass, mild and alloy steel, stainless, cast iron and acetal. Add your own, note where the numbers came from, restore the originals in one click.
Post-processor
When the toolpaths are ready, Takshak posts them to machine-ready G-code in your control's own dialect — paired with the machine you are running them on.
- Forty-three built-in posts — twenty ISO dialects, each shipped as a metric and an inch post, plus two bespoke emitters: Heidenhain Klartext (metric) and ShopBot OpenSBP (metric and inch), hobby controls among them.
- Metric or inch, end to end — a click switches every readout, input and message, and an inch post writes the program itself in inches (G20): every coordinate and feed converted at the moment of writing, never just the mode word. Set inch in Preferences and the matching post is already selected.
- Post-processor utility — edit any built-in post, or author a new one from scratch.
- Share a post — export any post or machine as a
.tkpostfile and import it on the next seat. - Operation picker — choose exactly which operations go into the file, and in what order; the order is saved with the project.
- Machine flags — work offset, safe-Z, spindle direction, coolant and air-blast.
- Compensation — cutter (G41/G42) and length (G43 H#) comp, cancelled before each op-end retract and at the end of the program.
- Clean motion — native arcs, drill cycles and modal output, per dialect.
- 4-axis aware — rotary moves with inverse-time feed, plus indexed poses; the axis letter (A / B / C) follows your machine.
- Custom header / footer — lines beginning G / M / S / T / F / O / ( pass through verbatim; plain text is wrapped as a comment.
Project files
A whole job saves to a single .tks file, geometry included, so a
project that opens on your machine opens on the one next to it with no hunt
for the original STEP.
Autosave is a crash net, not a save, and the distinction is enforced rather than described: the snapshot is written somewhere private and never touches your file. It is cleared on a successful save and on a clean exit — so one still sitting there at startup is the signal that something went wrong, and you are offered it back.
- One file — parts, stock, operations, tools and libraries in a single
.tks. - Geometry travels inside — no re-linking the original CAD on another machine.
- Multi-part jobs — the whole session saves and restores, active part included; the window title names the job and the part.
- Small by default — toolpaths recompute rather than bloat the file, so a job stays emailable.
- Or keep them — a preference saves the computed toolpaths with the job, and drops any whose operation, tool, geometry or app version changed since.
- Crash recovery — a private periodic snapshot, offered back on the next launch.
Community
The Takshak Hub is where owners and shops compare notes — read everything without an account; posting, requesting and downloading take a free one. No purchase required.
- Community forum — a post-processor that misbehaves, a feature the recogniser reads oddly, or a part you just cut.
- Post & machine library — post-processors and machine definitions contributed by users and shops, versioned, reviewed by a maintainer before release, and carrying the validations other shops have left on them.
- Vetted by use — as the library grows, the most-adopted contributions are periodically analysed and promoted to Takshak-vetted downloads.
- Videos & blog — feature walkthroughs, release notes, and the reasoning behind how Takshak does things.