i found a way to fix every problem in X7

[oneyankfan1]

See X7 is so bad we are now attaking eachother, thats probably what they want, for us to all eat eachother untill there is one left.

[Joe788]

:rofl:

 

Joe, with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. Develop SW to perform simulation and material removal based on the G-Code of virtually all CNC machines out there with all possible tool shapes is a lot more difficult than just creating toolpaths. Mastercam only simulates neutral data (NCI), and very limitedly.

 

 

I think there are a lot of people developing software that will tell you that you are 100% completely dead wrong on that.

[gcode]

So,.. maybe the question should be, what legacy functions are we willing to do without?

 

we already answered that.

The answer is none.

earlier this year, a hapless CNC employee broached the subject of dropping the old old school wireframe 3D toolpaths

and was shot dead on the spot. Personally, I don't used them, and never have, but there are plenty of people who do and

were quite vocal about it. They remain to this day and at some point CNC will have to invest the time and money

to upgrade them to a modern programming language.

[Joe788]

and yet their beta program works. Why is that?

 

 

Because the number of variables in the entire system is a miniscule fraction of what is in a bloated "everybody wants more added but nobody will ever give up the old stuff" system like Mastercam.

 

I'm not excusing Mastercam for the performance of their software or employees - I'm just suggesting we keep some sort of context in the comparisons here.

[mkd]

@watcher,

MTB posted a GUI for making a macro program to serialize/engrave that i thought was pretty cleaver.

i'm just an ingnorant MC user.

maybe there is something you see in other CAMs that doesn't exist in MC. Start small; make a C-Hook for it and charge $$$.

i don't know, seems you have a bit of unique experiences to take advantage of.

[Watcher]

CNC will have to invest the time and money

to upgrade them to a modern programming language.

 

G, I think they did it going with .NET back to X release... .NET is a modern language/framework...

 

I think it has to do with the re-usage of code that was not thought or designed to run under a modern programming language...

 

J2MC

[gcode]

G, I think they did it with .net back to X release... .NET is a modern language...

 

I think it has to do with the re-usage of code that was not though or designed to run under a modern programming language...

 

J2MC

 

I think the issue with the old wireframe 3D paths and the legacy surfacing toolpaths is that

they cannot be modified to conform to the new tree menu style without a ground up rewrite.

[Watcher]

@watcher,

MTB posted a GUI for making a macro program to serialize/engrave that i thought was pretty cleaver.

i'm just an ingnorant MC user.

maybe there is something you see in other CAMs that doesn't exist in MC. Start small; make a C-Hook for it and charge $$$.

i don't know, seems you have a bit of unique experiences to take advantage of.

 

Mkd,

 

First off, I apologize for the gratuitous offense. I mean it.

 

The company I currently work for is one of the biggest patent holders out there. We're really big. And of course we have some rules that don't exist in smaller companies.

 

One of the terms I have to accept while working there is that I can't use the know-how, resources or anything related to my job to work on my own business. I can have a parallel effort in photography, or cookies, but nothing related to CAx.

 

So to start a CAx development company I have to quit the current one. And my bills won't accept that.

[Watcher]

Because the number of variables in the entire system is a miniscule fraction of what is in a bloated "everybody wants more added but nobody will ever give up the old stuff" system like Mastercam.

 

I'm not excusing Mastercam for the performance of their software or employees - I'm just suggesting we keep some sort of context in the comparisons here.

 

Joe, you too, if I offended you, my sincerest apologies. Maybe I'm in a bad day today (Toothache).

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. VERICUT is one of the tools, but IMHO what it does is more complex technically speaking, but Ok. I do your opinion.

 

Best,

 

Daniel

[peon]

This topic may endanger the record number of views of 67,561! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

http://www.emasterca...topic=65520&hl=

[Newbeeee™]

I spent a week in Tolland last summer...

 

I was there also, we stressed many issues. Some they took to heart but others were washed away. Things looked promising in the early days of M/T. communication has seemed to be not important anymore...

 

To answer Daniel's question of what would I do if I was in charge...

Apart from let everyone go early on a Friday if the weather was nice

 

Anyway in more seriousness.

There are without doubt whatsoever, some 1st class guys on this forum, and I would be a complete jackass to not listen and take advice from you.

I read that Tim M was involved with the MTM, so you, James, JP and you guys above, I would be paying for you to be flown out once every 4 to 6 months to CNC for a sit down/catch up to see how things are developing and grill you all with questions and on future development and bug priorities blah blah blah.

If you did the 1st meeting that's great - to not have any follow up and for all momentum to be lost and drift away is an absolute golden oportunity missed and an own goal of the 1st order of magnitude.

Someone needs to jump on the arse kicking machine for letting this slip.

[Newbeeee™]

This topic may endanger the record number of views of 67,561! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

http://www.emasterca...topic=65520&hl=

To correct your view count, that's now 67,562 as I clicked on it and viewed it again to see what it was

[Joe788]

Joe, you too, if I offended you, my sincerest apologies. Maybe I'm in a bad day today (Toothache).

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. VERICUT is one of the tools, but IMHO what it does is more complex technically speaking, but Ok. I do your opinion.

 

Best,

 

Daniel

 

It's more of an opinion relayed to me by people who develop software. By no means am I trying to suggest that Vericut is a simple or easy thing to accomplish - just that Mastercam is a much, much, much deeper piece of software, with a much wider variety of users using it in a much wider variety of fashions. In other words: More bullxxxx = more problems. Not that that excuses CNC Software of anything. There are other CAM packages just as deep or deeper than Mastercam, without as many problems. I was just saying the Vericut comparison isn't really apples to apples.

[mkd]

Mkd,

 

First off, I apologize for the gratuitous offense. I mean it.

no hard feelings, i was poking the tiger a bit.

[Thee Rickster ™]

I think the issue with the old wireframe 3D paths and the legacy surfacing toolpaths is that

they cannot be modified to conform to the new tree menu style without a ground up rewrite.

 

they should just re write them from the ground up...imo

[#Rekd™]

+1 Rickster!

 

This pretty much tells the story:

MC, is what some IT ppl will call a resource pig.

 

If the developers could have MC manage resources more efficiently and have the software

'not' work against itself, maybe a newer dos kernel or what ever,

then you would see drastic improvements and less bugs.

 

I still cant get over the file size issue.

 

Surfcam total tolerance on paths 0.0003" , mold file size 30 meg (smaller step overs and step downs to boot)

MC total tolerance size 0.0006, mold file size 314 meg.

 

That's over 10x the data for a lesser tolerant, larger stepover file size??

 

I reprogram older mold files that have changes, in MC, and these are the finding on every file with mega surface

paths

 

 

There are a ton of reasons for crashing and that is a bigger problem for me then the Bugs.

[The Chipmaker]

See X7 is so bad we are now attaking eachother, thats probably what they want, for us to all eat eachother untill there is one left.

 

That's funny! We will all be MC zombies!

[Guest]

:flamesuit on:

 

Here's my take on much of this.

 

Most of the issues pointed out here are VERY legit, as are the gripes.

 

The problem I see, once the discussion veers away from the "issues" it begins to get watered down and almost seems to become white noise

 

If I could make one suggestion to you guys, keep these things on topic and on point. It becomes FAR easier to point to them and have it clearly seen exactly the issue instead of reading pages of zombie talk.

 

JM2C YMMV

[#Rekd™]

Agreed JP!

 

I would very much like someone from CNC software to address why the difference in file size that Rick has demonstrated vs another software.

[CJep]

So,... Verify,....

Instead of using the compare in Verify I've been using the compare in stock model,..

 

$0.02

[peon]

Hockey guy, one thing I have noticed with cam software other than MCAM is that they do NOT incorporate the NCI file within the main part file. Pro/e is separate, the old CADDS5 by Computervision was separate and I thought Powermill was also separate. I think they called the files a CL-file, rather than an NCI file. Those systems directed all parts to their own part folder with all the neccesary files to manage and toolpath your part. With Mastercam, everything is included in the one part file. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in on this since I may be wrong. I have also never used Surfcam, so I can't really determine if their file/folder format is similar.

[Watcher]

Hockey guy, one thing I have noticed with cam software other than MCAM is that they do NOT incorporate the NCI file within the main part file. Pro/e is separate, the old CADDS5 by Computervision was separate and I thought Powermill was also separate. I think they called the files a CL-file, rather than an NCI file. Those systems directed all parts to their own part folder with all the neccesary files to manage and toolpath your part. With Mastercam, everything is included in the one part file. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in on this since I may be wrong. I have also never used Surfcam, so I can't really determine if their file/folder format is similar.

 

Peon, in Pro/NC it's also stored within the file, within the toolpath. But it's a metadata format. Then Pro/NC reads the machine definition (Workcell) and makes the necessary changes.

[#Rekd™]

I am sure Rick will tell you the crunch time is in direct relation to the file size for both softwares. MC = large file size and long crunch time, Surfcam = smaller file size and shorter crunch time.

[peon]

Daniel, does the file size grow when you create the cl-file and what exactly is a cl-file? I no longer use pro/e for toolpathing. I just remember having to make a cl-file before posting. In Mastercam, I just select my toolpaths and post.

[Watcher]

Peon,

 

The file size is nearly static, as the CL in metadata format is always present. The changes performed after the reading of the workcell specifics are minimal and can't be easily noticed in the file size.

 

You can purge the toolpath if you want, there is a config.pro option to do that.

 

The other way to reduce file size in Pro/NC is suppressing the features and saving the file in this state. Then you open it again and resume them.