Splines to Arcs

[Candicane]

Guys,

I'm after the best way to convert splines to arcs in 2021..

Cant seem to find a sure fire way to eliminate the splines all together..

Thanks!
 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Candicane said:

Guys,

I'm after the best way to convert splines to arcs in 2021..

Cant seem to find a sure fire way to eliminate the splines all together..

Thanks!
 

This is a popular topic, break many is a good one, and simplify splines, both from the wireframe menu.

[Guest]

 

[JoshC]

If its really complex and if simplify doesn't work here is a cool trick that always will work.

1. Create a contour toolpath, then window chain all the geometry on screen (after window chaining an approx start point must be selected on the screen, this should chain all geo in the window)

2. in the toolpath paramaters, select any tool, set the cutter comp to OFF (found on cut parameters page), then turn off all other pages like the multipass page, depth cuts, leadin/out, etc. and also set the depth to the appropriate depth or 0 incremental.

3. Turn on the arc filter page of the toolpath, set it to create arcs in XY plane, set desired tolerance (these tolerances will effect how many arcs and lines the toolpath produces and their accuracy compared to the original spline geo)

4. Backplot the entire toolpath (or just drag the backplot slider bar to the end) and in the backplot window choose the button that is called "Save Backplot Geometry to Level", a window will appear asking you which level to save the toolpath geometry to. (NOTE: Turn off rapids in backplot otherwise you will need to delete those backplot lines from your saved toolpath geo later)

 

This works perfectly every time because mastercams contour toolpath must create arcs and lines, It can not produce spline geometry. I hope this explanation makes sense.

[Guest]

Very creative approach Josh!