Relative Planes Suggestion

[MLS]

So it appears that the relative planes only works for front, back, right, etc. Unfortunately when I am doing complex 5-axis and 4-axis parts, these planes constitute about 20% of the locked tool-axis planes I have to create.

 

Since there is an option to create planes relative to an individual WCS, why not have the option to create ANY plane relative to that WCS including custom ones built from geometry?

 

I am never going to use a custom tool plane for more than one WCS since I may have to change one operation and not the other. It makes sense to me that if you turn on a WCS, ANY plane used in that operation would be visible and all the ones relative to other operations would not.

 

 

Does this make sense or is there a reasoning I am missing?

[crazy^millman]

Well you loose me on the WCS and making planes relative to them only because you mention 5 axis and 4th axis work. I only ever have one WCS for this type of work and may have 20 to 200 C-planes for my 5 axis work. I do make notes on my c-planes when creating them and if I put geometry on that C-plane I will sometimes put notes on level as to the c-plane to keep them all straight but again that is all working in one WCS. If you are looking or using WCS as your 5 axis moves or 4 axis moves then you are heading down a trouble some road IMHO. I understand the aggravation of having to go to the C-plane or View manager to find C-planes sometimes when doing this type of work, but IMHO comes with the environment of work you are involved in. If I am misunderstand you then please correct my thought process.

[Roger Peterson]

MLS, I couldn't agree more.

 

I've actually asked for a folder type layout, where I can only see "planes" under an expanded WCS. It could be useful to copy planes between WCS's but in general, a plane is only used with one WCS so why have the "ability" to select it when using a different WCS.

 

Ron, think that I have a part that requires two setups in my HMC. I have my planes to be used with "SETUP #1 WCS" and my planes to be used with "SETUP #2 WCS". Yet in mastercam I can select any plane regardless of my WCS. If you check the box for only displaying relative views to the selected WCS this works great, but only for the standard views (Front, right, left, etc...) relative to that WCS, not custom planes based off of geometry.

 

Where this gets tricky is if you have planes for the same "face" of a part for each WCS, the only difference is that they have different X Y orientations so you need to use names to distinguish which plane is for which WCS. This means all my planes start with WCS #1 etc...

 

 

JM2C

[MLS]

Ron

 

Yeah, multiple WCS per setup spells disaster. Vericut tried to remachine the machine when I wasn't paying attention and did that. Heh

 

I too only use a single WCS per setup, I am specifically talking about viewing(organizing) tool-planes in the manager. I don't want to see a hundred planes on the manager, I only want to see the planes used under my active setup(WCS). I also really have no need to see c-planes, Only the t-planes that are linked to actual toolpaths.

 

That being said, I would like to designate the associativity from my WCS for a specific operation to the t-planes that I use under that WCS.

 

A folder layout or a tree layout would be great. Even if we could associate custom planes to a WCS and use the existing switch, that would be a step in the right direction IMO.

 

[crazy^millman]

With the explanation you both have given I can see where that would be a great time saver and benefit to those of us who use Planes at different times.

[Zero]

A tree style layout in the view manager does sound like it would be pretty usefull

[MLS]

Did you ever get any response to your Query Roger?