Lazy Iskander dirty tricks Inc .

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

John !

 

I consider to change the way I show tricks :

instead of files to use images ,that will help

to see ,what I mean for those who do not have FTP access .

Like I did it in last article .

BTW ,you can do it also ,show me your common geometry and we will try to discuss it .

 

HTH

WTHH

[HevyMetl]

Forgive me. I have the image saved out of MC, and I have pasted it into a word doc. But for the life of me I don't understand how to get the image into this posting. If I click on image it asks for a url. ???? It is overhead my head. Please explain how to get the image here and I will do it.

[Fig sign]

John .

 

Make an account on photobucket.com and you will be able to use url`s for your pictures .

 

Regards

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

A tip : Changing color table .

 

Thats an easy thing to do but very recommended

 

Create one line with minimal thickness .

Xform->translate (copy ) it 255 times

Now use Bryan314 c-hook colorent (get it from here ,if you still don`t have them Bryan`s C-hooks )

select all your entities ,set colors from 0 to 255

and run it

Change colors for entities that you do not see good or don`t see at all

HTH

WTHH

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

The main task of this trick with colors is to be able ALWAYS TO SEE CONVERTED GEOMETRY .

It happened a couple of times that I was close to scrapping some part simply because the imported Cad system used white background and I not saw black entities on black .

After I had run this test it would never happen again!

HTH

WTHH

[Bunny McRabbit]

Well ,I have something to contribute too

Fast way to check if contours are closed .

If you have 200-1000 contours it can be a challenge ,right ?

Not if you`ll use create->drafting->hatch command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hatch entities are fill patterns inserted within closed curve boundaries in a drawing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If some contours are not closed ,the hatch will be unsuccesful and this contours will be marked in red .

 

PS

Hi ,Winnie ,I am in !

[Bunny McRabbit]

Little tip :

Scrapped part in many cases can be used as a nice ashtray !

[Bunny McRabbit]

With a help of hatch command you can do nice tricks on 3d surfaces

[bryan314]

Scrapped part in many cases can be used as a nice ashtray !

 

I find mine make better pen/pencil holders.

 

Bryan

[cadcam]

quote:

---

Well ,I have something to contribute too

Fast way to check if contours are closed .

If you have 200-1000 contours it can be a challenge ,right ?

Not if you`ll use create->drafting->hatch command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hatch entities are fill patterns inserted within closed curve boundaries in a drawing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If some contours are not closed ,the hatch will be unsuccesful and this contours will be marked in red .

---

I would say better option is to use Analize Contour using thurogh. this will give you the option to mark the problem areas for you.

 

Much fater and easer

[Eeyore-nonhuman forum member]

~~~~~~~~~~~

I would say better option is to use Analize Contour using thurogh. this will give you the option to mark the problem areas for you.

 

Much fater and easer

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jay !

Thank you for contribution !

Not want to argue .

Only want to say ,that what Bunnie sais good for not closed chains and for all other cases too and what You say good for overlapping chains mostly

~~~~~~~~~~

Thorough searches for all overlapping entities. You must select Display (Overlapping entities) to enable this option. This search takes longer to process than Quick.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In our (my ,Bunny and Winnie work) the main problem is not closed chains (0.1 is enough )

This can and happens mostly in 3d models with bad imported surfaces .

There are some other cases when you can get the mass appearance of not closed chains .

[Fig sign]

NONSENSE (New Open-minded NonHuman Scientific Essential Nonprofit Symbolic Encyclopedia )

initiative Lazy tricks revival .

 

Clean geometry

 

 

Preface.

Most problems ,that moldmaker have ,IMHO ,are from bad geometry .

If all the project would be made by one man on one Cad-Cam all or most of

this problems would never occur ,but the real life sometimes very far from

that .

You can get bad ,low quality model ,with lame tolerances ,bad surfaces ,bad

geometry ,bad solids ,and you need to work on it cause your boss scares to

offend the client asking for a good model .

Also the matter of convertors .

Take the best model in the world ,pass it through 2-3 converters and chances

are high that the model may be bad .

Some programs like Cimatron Elite that`s very strong program notorious for

bad convertors ,

So when I get a model from the Cimatron and even a guy tries his best with

different convertors still the model can be bad at the end .

Also when the geometry is bad ,especially contours ,be ready for some not nice

suprises ,especially in contour 3d toolpathes .

The tool can jump down 100 mm only because to keep tangency of the gap

when on contour element looks a bit upwards and the other over a gap downwards

So my goal is TO prepare good geometry BEFORE trying to make the toolpath

 

I will start from model analizing

Stay tuned

[jeff]

quote:

---

Little tip :

Scrapped part in many cases can be used as a nice ashtray !

---

Mine can be used for very large boat anchors.

 

Hey Iskander, I have a question.

I want to replace my current monitor with my flat screen (not an lcd,just a flat panel display) but my video card doesn't support the dv input that my monitor has.

I have a Gforce2 pro,so I got an adapter to go from dvi to vga.

I hooked it up last night,but got no display at all.

Why is that?

[Fig sign]

It can be refresh rate ,for example .

Go down with refresh rate and test it

You pluged in power supply cable ?

[Fig sign]

Ok ,when you import model and you don`t have

error messages and all analize procedures do not show errors ,still you can have problems and sometimes even visual check is a hard task ,but may be enough to detect them .

So may be it is funny ,but first thing that I do after converting ,levels management ,analize checkings and home setting I run this little c-hook

A link to C-hook

http://www.emastercam.com/tools/chooks/colrsurf/index.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ColourSurf varies surface colours in an array to a create a patch work

effect. Excellent for working on large surfaced parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is real time-savier .

For it`s better use I changed my color table settings to avoid too dark colors

That`s how my color table looks

 

To be continued

[jeff]

quote:

---

It can be refresh rate ,for example .

Go down with refresh rate and test it

You pluged in power supply cable ?

---

It's set at 60hz,same as the other monitor.

And yes the power supply is plugged in.

Oh well,maybe it gives me a reason to go out and get a 256mb video card for gaming huh?

Thanks anyway.

[Fig sign]

Suppose this is a model

And you run toolpath->surface->finish->shallow and get this result

Only because of some nasty little surface (the remnant of model splitting or some other fault )

If you ran colrsurf.dll before you would see it

The other way is to run analize->surfaces->small.surf with a color changing .

It is a good feature ,but for those who has ver8

it is not an option ,it is new feature of ver9

 

Stay tuned

[Fig sign]

Next to come - analize your geometry using Bryan`s Colrent.dll C-hook

[Lars Christensen]

Hi Iskander,

 

Good to see you are back.

I am verily looking forward to this one about analyzing.

This is one of the problems I find time and time again.

I import a costumer’s .DWG, and find double geometry, missing notes or strangest levels.

Now I don’t think you can blame the Mcam converter, you got to expect that once and a while things gets screwed up, like translating Hebrew to Danish. But the fact is you are always sitting with that bad taste in your mouth figuring if you got everything straighten out right. Especially when sometimes you are dealing with the customers who still demands that dimensions are rule and geometry is secondary

What I normally do is starting from one end and putting things on levels, and then I color code as I go along with different colors depending on priority and checked geometry.

 

 

Lars

Mill Version 8.1.1 Level .3

Wire Version 8.1.1 Level 2

Demo Version 9

[Fig sign]

Lars

What I do :

I use IntelliCad as a tool for Dwg/dxf exporting

when MC fails .

I can say that many times Intellicad or Autocad

Convert the drawing worser than MC ,if it was made on an alien program ,(not Intellicad Or Autocad ) .

Intellicad is very mighty program with some nice options and tools ,if you know Autocad you `ll like it ,

It was free before 2001 , now it is cheap pay ,but a demo full options gives you a right to load it something like 1000 times

Recommend to try

After I save dwg or dxf in intellicad as dwg or dxf for ver 12 usually I don`t have problems.

Anyway ,this combination of Intellicad and Mastercam works very nice.

Regards

 

[ 12-08-2004, 05:08 AM: Message edited by: Iskander teh Owl ]

[Lars Christensen]

I have downloaded the trial version, and will give it a try later today, thank you so much Iskander.

 

Lars

[Fig sign]

Jumping out of topic for a bit

A trick that I use for a long time

 

Geometry build without closed contours like closed contours with chain ->partial->wait-yes

No need to build additional geometry for engaving

every opened contour with partial chaining taken in two directions so it is regarded as CLOSED !!!!

Masrercam will not calculate nesting pockets ,so you need to add them afterward

Enjoy

 

If someone needs file ,I can put it on FTP

 

InSaNe regards

[Lars Christensen]

Hi Iskander,

I would like if you could post this on the FTP.

 

Thanks

Lars

[Fig sign]

Lars ,here it is

 

LAZYLETTERS.ZIP on ftp in folder

Iskander_Lazytricks

 

InSaNe regards

[Lars Christensen]

O great one, your skills and teaching so appreciated , this test you so have send me is to difficult for my level.

 

Dude, I can’t do it.

 

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP

 

 

Thanks

Lars