I do a lot of RC sailboat racing, and new hull's for some classes of boats can get mighty pricey (There are RG65 CF hulls that cost upwards of $4,000, and they're less than a meter long and just the hull, nothing else!), and I'd like to design some of my own.

One common (manual) technique is take a hull design, and cut it into layers, then you'd cut each layer out of a layer of styrofoam, glue the layers together and then sand it smooth. The resulting shape can be used for a wood plank, Vacuum formed, CF, or other material mold.

I'd like to be able to take a (relatively) simple x/y gantry and attach a pen to it to trace out the layers to be cut. Eventually it would be upgraded to a laser to cut the foam.

But right now, I'm just looking at software. What programs would you recommend to use to design and then export 2d gcode? I was thinking something like Ramps to run the plotter/burner.