Clean-room reference notes on the file formats a cabinet CNC actually reads — OpenSBP, Biesse CIX, Homag woodWOP MPR, SCM Xilog, generic ISO G-code and layered DXF — written while building the post processors in WoodWright, a free cabinet design and manufacturing CAD for custom shops.
These notes exist because they were hard to assemble and nobody had published them. Every format below is documented publicly by its vendor in some form, but the cabinet specifics — where Z zero belongs, how a 35 mm hinge cup gets bored on a router with no drilling head, which corner a sheet loads from — are scattered across forum posts, manuals and hard-won shop experience. They are collected here.
| Format | File | Controls | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Layered DXF | .dxf |
Any CAM that reads DXF | Proven |
| Generic ISO G-code | ISO / RS-274 |
Mach3, Mach4, GRBL 1.1, LinuxCNC, Masso | Awaiting a first cut |
| ShopBot OpenSBP | .sbp |
ShopBot Control, SB3, FabMo | Awaiting a first cut |
| Homag / Weeke woodWOP | .mpr |
woodWOP | Awaiting a first cut |
| Biesse CIX | .cix |
bSolid, bWorks | Awaiting a first cut |
| SCM Xilog | .xxl |
Xilog | Awaiting a first cut |
Proven means shops have used the output on real jobs. Awaiting a first cut means the post is built, simulated, and verified against its own re-read — but no machine has cut one of these yet. Five of the six are in that second state, and saying so is the point: a post processor nobody has run is a hypothesis, however carefully it was written. Run the first program on scrap and check it against the drawing.
WoodWright has one toolpath planner. The Xilog generator plans the program, the simulator clears it, and every post below translates that cleared program op for op — never a second planner with a second set of rules. Whatever your machine reads is the same toolpath every other machine reads.
Every file this post writes is read back by the post’s own parser and compared to the source program move for move — same XY, same depth, same order, every bore accounted for. A translation that does not survive its own re-read is not a program, and is not offered.
Written from public format documentation only. No vendor post-processor was copied, decompiled or referenced.
If you run one of these on a real machine, especially a Biesse or a woodWOP, the notes here get better for everyone — open an issue with what the control did. The ambiguous tokens listed in each file are ambiguous because no one has confirmed them yet.
Documentation, CC BY 4.0. Use it, quote it, correct it.
Maintained alongside https://woodwright.app/docs/, which carries the same reference.