3D Tool Thumbnail Trouble in MCAM2020

[rcoope]

I've been having fun over Christmas learning Lathe and starting to build a library of commonly used lathe tools for the Haas TL-1 in our prototyping shop. All seems to be going well (pre first post) except when I import a 3D tool as a step file I don't get a proper thumbnail in my tool library. The pictures are an example tool I made of a small boring bar, this one drawn in Solidworks and imported as a step, but I've seen the same thing with .stp files from Iscar.  The tool setup works perfectly and comes in and backplots and verifies fine, it's just the thumbnail shows the classic blank with gomon.  I did search on this topic and while there was nothing specific to the tool library, I did see where Windows file thumbnails are tied to how the part was oriented in the last save or something. Is that the case here and is there some special trick to saving the part before you import it as a tool?  

While I'm here, I must give a shout out to George at MLC CAD on YouTube who's video "Mastercam Tech Tip: Lathe Toolholder Set-up" sorted out my previous big problem which was understanding tool orientation and the fact that there is such a thing as upside down tools! I would further shout out to Mooray Machine who's YouTube video on boring setup led me to the miracle of Stock Recognition. 

[crazy^millman]

Sorry, but you will need to attach a file so we can play along with you at home. There are all built in 2021 and no issues.

 

 

 

 

[rcoope]

Ha, I am a n00b! So I trundled off to the office this morning and in response to Crazy Millman, set about making a sample tooldb library to upload.  But now that I am doing this on my actual computer, rather than running it over Remote Desktop, it works fine. Even the mini boring bar showed up properly, not initially, but by opening it to edit and then immediately hitting the OK button.  So put this down under rare and weird issues that arise when you run MCAM over Remote Desktop, which otherwise works fine (except the backplot buttons don't show up until you mouse over them - and even that is not a problem in MasterCAM for Solidworks). Thanks Crazy Millwright for poking this towards a resolution! 

[crazy^millman]

44 minutes ago, rcoope said:

Ha, I am a n00b! So I trundled off to the office this morning and in response to Crazy Millman, set about making a sample tooldb library to upload.  But now that I am doing this on my actual computer, rather than running it over Remote Desktop, it works fine. Even the mini boring bar showed up properly, not initially, but by opening it to edit and then immediately hitting the OK button.  So put this down under rare and weird issues that arise when you run MCAM over Remote Desktop, which otherwise works fine (except the backplot buttons don't show up until you mouse over them - and even that is not a problem in MasterCAM for Solidworks). Thanks Crazy Millwright for poking this towards a resolution! 

Okay that makes perfect sense they are taking a screen shot at a point in time and over the remote desktop you are getting to much lag and that was what you ran into. By being local you got it corrected without the lag to create the issue.