MCX and Rhino

[phil darcy]

What do you guys feel about Rhino as a helper to MC for surfacing any advantage?

 

Mostly working with digitized data from touch probe on machine of cylinder head ports to surfaces.

[Guest]

Phil,

 

I have no direct experience with Rhino but from what I have heard about it is is very very good, particularly when dealing with "organic" type surfaces.

 

BTW, MCAM can import a point cloud and Verisurf can create a surface off of your imported point cloud.

 

I don't know if that would be accurate enough for you however.

[BernieT]

Rhino3D is a great complement to Mc, Esp, as JP said, for "organic" surfaces.

 

But also for translations, 'matching' surfaces, modifying the shape of curves or surfs by moving their control points. The list is long and the price is cheap!

 

I've used Rhino for about 8 years; not instead of, but in conjunction with MC. The translation between Rhino and MC is excellent. So if I can't trim a surf in MC, I will take it into Rhino and it will usually trim easily and then bring it back into MC.

 

Example: In MC you want a 'coons patch' - fairly complicated procedure, in Rhino you pick 3 or 4 edges - done.

 

Do a search for Rhino or Rhino3D - there has been many comments about Rhino here.

 

HTH

[Thad]

Slight hijack...

 

When you get a point cloud from a CMM, are you getting center of stylus locations? Does the CMM calculate where the surface it bumped really is (tangent) or is that what Verisurf does for you?

 

I've never done any work like this so I'm totally in the dark as to what actually takes place.

 

Thad

[YoDoug®]

Thad, A CMM point cloud should be the actual surface. The CMM calculates the surface from the center of the stylus from the vector that the CMM hit was taken. The shorter the vector move the lower tolerance the calculation has, also manual CMM have more trouble because the movement is not always a straight vector,IE shorter movement.

 

Bernie, MCX has a Create-NET-Surface that works like you described in Rhino. I haven't used a coons patch since V9.

[k turk]

rhino is an excellent program. i've used it for years with complex organic shapes. it has great surface creation and manipulation tools and is also good in translating files from other formats. i prefer it over solidworks in creation of 3D models and have had no problems with going to and from mastercam or surfcam. if you propose using rhino as a program to rework, alter and add to existing surfaces it should work well for you.

 

however, with that said, if your entire end game is to create surfaces from point cloud data, i am not sure rhino is the program you are after. Rhino 4 has been recently released and they may have made moves forward in this context, but there are other programs available developed specifically for translating point cloud data into surfaces. you might look at Geomagic for such applications. while i have never used it, i know others using FaroArm scanner who swear by it.

[DG]

Rhino works excellantly with MC. Only trouble I've ever had is with trimmed surfaces importing. Then I set my tolerances tight and use IGES files.