As Fred says, the workflow is pretty simple and very similar no matter what you use to generate the gcode.
It’s probably worth mentioning that the Shapeoko as a device doesn’t have any real facility to process files. It only really processes single instructions… essentially single commands to move around. So there’s never really any “sending the file to the Shapeoko”.
The overall process is:
- Create or plagiarize a design
- Create toolpaths for that design… in other words, associate the shapes in the design to paths the machine will use to cut the shape.
- Generate some machine operations from those toolpaths… (known as GCode)
- Use a “GCode sender” to send the instructions to the Shapeoko, one instruction at a time.
As for software to help with this process:
(1) can be often done in any design tool for 2D or 3D files (Inkscape, Illustrator, 3D Builder, blender, Aspire, Carbide Create, MS Paint, Fusion 360, OpenSCAD etc)
(2) and (3) are always done using a “specialist” tool, such as Aspire, Carbide Create, Fusion 360, or FenrusMagic ™
(4) is always done by a specialist tool. On this forum most people either use Carbide Motion, or something called CNCjs.