So people on the new forum can see a picture.

[crazy^millman]

Here is what I asked for over in the Offical Mastercam forum that you cannot upload pictures to or link to Photobucket on.

 

CrazyMillman (Yes the New Forum cannot handle the ^ sign)

 

Enhancement Request and sorry if it is a duplicate.

 

I would like to have sub Folders with Expand and Collapse ability in the Levels Manager.

 

 

I have a part with several hundred levels in it. We are through 10 revisions of the part as I have been programming this current project. All Manufacturing adjustments to the original engineering that were not considered. The 1st operation has 78 Levels. The 2nd Operation Fixture has 10 levels. The custom tools and inspection drawings take up about 100 levels. Be nice when I am done with Operation 1 to Collapse that group of Levels. When I am done with tooling, custom tools, and etc... to just collapse them. Sorry still not a fan of the view sheets. I understand what they are meant for and call me an old dog not willing to change and I will leave it at that.

 

CrazyMillman (Yes the New Forum cannot handle the ^ sign)

 

Okay let me see if I can better explain my self. Think of the operations manager and all the operations. Right now I am 182 operation deep into a part. I have 5 parent Operations groups and inside of them are anywhere from 2 to 20 sub operation groups. I want to look at operation one for tooling in the operations manager I can expand that group and see my 5 groups of folders. I want to look in that child folder I can then look at the 5 or 10 operations in that sub folder. Range is no good because then they are hidden and not visible then I am having to always play with the range to see levels so thanks for that suggestion, but not really easy. Why do we have Groups and sub Groups in the operations Manager? To organize things and make it easier to pick the pepper out of the Salad. Yes I know I am insane in labeling every level and breaking things down like I do, but I like I can go back to projects I have no touched in 5 years and can my brain wrapped around them in minutes no hours. I also like the fact when I leave a part programmed for a customer they can follow what I did make sense out of it and use it from that point forward with having everything crammed on 5 or 10 levels.

 

 

 

[Pitka_Guru]

I have encountered situations like this, not on this grand a scale mind you. I label every toolpath and layer I use for the same reasons as Ron but I might only have 60 ops.   

 

Surely there is a way for this to be done with it out being too painful. My gut feeling is most users are not this organized? 

 

Good idea Ron.

[Rstewart]

Nope, definitely not this organized.  Workin' on it tho!

 

I really like the idea of subfolders in the lvl manager for sure.

[CJep]

To organize things and make it easier to pick the pepper out of the Salad. Yes I know I am insane in labeling every level and breaking things down like I do, but I like I can go back to projects I have no touched in 5 years and can my brain wrapped around them in minutes or hours.

That's pepper?

I thought it was fly poop,...

 

That's how I organize info Ron

 

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Level groups would be awesome.  I'm doing the same sort of thing with levels but not on that level of complexity.

[BenK]

That's a great idea. I organize my ops and levels much the same as you. Only difference is I use the 1000 range for op1 2000 for op2 and so on. It definitively makes it easy for others to understand what you are doing.

[FROZEN]

How about when you post, the offsets in the program use the label from the view manager. I label them the same for the same reason crazy mill guy does. I go from Mastercam to the machine looking for the same label.

[DUM1]

NEVER THOUGHT OF IT BUT MAN THAT WOULD BE COOL , I HAVE THE SAME LOOK IN MY LEVEL MNGR AND IT GETS PRETY BUSY FAST AND THE VIEW SHEETS ARE GREAT BUT SEEMS LIKE THEY CHANGE WHENEVER YOU ADD A LEVEL WITH NEW DETAILS AND I HAVE TO GO BACK AND RESELECT LEVELS AND SAVE VIEWSHEETS AGAIN AND AGAIN....

[Mick]

_{Ron, can I ask.... Is the reason you have so many levels present in the geometry file due to having workholding geometry drawn, or is the entities on each level toolpath geometry? Looking at the titles of the levels, I'm assuming that it is a mixture of both.}

 

_{Your request is a great idea.}

[Newbeeee™]

Too much like hard work - FBM and be done

[Mick]

Too much like hard work - FBM and be done

 

Paint by numbers you mean?

[crazy^millman]

_{Ron, can I ask.... Is the reason you have so many levels present in the geometry file due to having workholding geometry drawn, or is the entities on each level toolpath geometry? Looking at the titles of the levels, I'm assuming that it is a mixture of both.}

 

_{Your request is a great idea.}

 

It is a mixture of both. I am extremely picky about the code that goes to the machine. Having run machines for most of my life I know what I want the code to look like on the machine. I also want any of my customers to be able to follow my work if they want to make changes they can.

[Chipmakr]

I know it won't hide the levels to make the cleaner appearance that you seek, but you could get some of the functionality you are looking for using level sets. Go to any level in the set and make it your main level, then select ALL OFF, then right click and select ALL LEVEL SET ON, the display by level set at top.

 

This could be a work around to at least get all of a group to the top until the added functionality rolls around.

[Bob W.]

I really wish we could create sub folders in the level manager much like you can in the operation manager. It would be so much cleaner and easier to follow. I organize my programs in a similar fashion but not with that level of detail and I often would love to be able to collapse all levels related to Op1 and expand levels related to Op2, etc...

[kccadcam]

Anybody using level templates??

Right click in level manager and "Get Named Levels"

We do something like this on every new file that way layout is consistent between programmers.

 

LEVELS TEMPLATE.zip

[BenK]

Anybody using level templates??

Right click in level manager and "Get Named Levels"

We do something like this on every new file that way layout is consistent between programmers.

 

All the time. Its a great feature, keeps your level naming consistent and saves time. I wish I could get the other programmers here on board with using it. 

[mike561h]

I was taught to use levels for all ops  I can program by WCS plane on one level. I like to put each op on a level to be organized..

I really can see what im doing. some guys think its a waist of time I don't what your feeling.

[Guest]

I start EVERY job I plan on programming with a VB script. THe levels get set automatically.

 

1,Original Solid
2,Original Solid Edge Curves
3,OP01 Material
4,OP02 Material
5,OP03 Material
6,Top Solid Extrusion Geometry
7,Front Solid Extrusion Geometry
8,Side Solid Extrusion Geometry
10,OP01 Toolpath Geometry 1
11,OP01 Toolpath Geometry 2
20,OP02 Toolpath Geometry 1
21,OP02 Toolpath Geometry 2
30,OP03 Toolpath Geometry 1
31,OP03 Toolpath Geometry 2
110,OP01 Fixture Solid
111,OP01 Fixture Wireframe 1
112,OP01 Fixture Wireframe 2
113,OP01 Fixture Wireframe 3
120,OP02 Fixture Solid
121,OP02 Fixture Wireframe 1
122,OP02 Fixture Wireframe 2
123,OP02 Fixture Wireframe 3
130,OP03 Fixture Solid
131,OP03 Fixture Wireframe 1
132,OP03 Fixture Wireframe 2
133,OP03 Fixture Wireframe 3
201,Form Tool #1
202,Form Tool #2
203,Form Tool #3
204,Form Tool #4
205,Form Tool #5
206,Form Tool #6
207,Form Tool #7
231,OP01 Tombstone Orientation
232,OP02 Tombstone Orientation
233,OP03 Tombstone Orientation
241,OP01 WCS Lines
242,OP02 WCS Lines
243,OP03 WCS Lines
255,Blanked Entities

 

Copy these two files to your C:\Users\Public\Documents\shared mcamx8\vb\ folder. remove the last ".txt" in the file name and  you should have a *.csv file and a *.vbs file.

 

To run it, click "Settings", "VB Script" and click the file open icon, select "CSV2Levels.vbs", then click Run. Then  your levels will automatically be named. This is more or less just a primer for me. It gets me started in the right direction. I then add levels as necessary.

 

SOmebody asked about organization, I'll say this; I like vacations, I like knowing that a novice Mastercam user can open up my files no matter how complex, figure out what tool path is doing what at a glance make a modification, post it out and run it. There's only one way that happens and it's file organization. Sure I could not label $#!+ and somebody could spend hours going over it and eventually figure it out, that's not what I'm about. And like Ron said, he likes going back to a file years later, look at it for a few minutes and get going. Same here.

 

Then again, there's folks reading this that are afraid for your jobs. Afraid that you're not "the" man. Afraid that you can/will be replaced. Guesss what, you can be replaced and so can I. So what. Get over it. Do things properly and thinigs will go well for you making tool path.

 

JM2CFWIW, YMMV

CSV2Levels.csv.txt

CSV2Levels.vbs.txt

[Guest]

Oh, I also use Level Sets. It's not nearly as cool as what Ron is proposing but it may help a little.

[Chris Rizzo]

Viewsheets goes a long way towards this.. Activates levels as a "set", and also planes and views, which is hugely helpful.

[crazy^millman]

Viewsheets goes a long way towards this.. Activates levels as a "set", and also planes and views, which is hugely helpful.

 

Chris problem is then you need 40 or 50 different view sheets. Want to change a view looking at something not using View sheets you keep what you are looking at. Go to the view sheet that you did not save at a view sheet and now you need to go back and turn all the levels and such back on. I would have Op1 with 10 view sheets and op 2 with 10 view sheets and now I am back to clutter on the bottom of the screen.

[#Rekd™]

James,

 

Will these files work in X7 as well?

 

Thanks

 

John

[sir Camalot]

Ron I also feel your pain and operate similar to how you do. I asked a while back in this thread for these enhancements which I think are similar;

 

Level Manager:
 

• Have the ability to set rows with a color. This would help to distinguish different sections or groups and make it easier to read.
• I would like to set up groups/ assemblies/sub-assemblies. This would behave like a typical tree structure except in a column format giving the user a way to control their levels better.
• List Levels: I would like to set multiple options. For example: Named Levels within the levels range of 300 to 400. Or Used Levels from Levels 10 to 50. (Ctrl + Click)
• Numbering Levels: I would like to see some right click options to renumber Levels.
  • Renumber multiple levels
  • Renumber Range of levels
  • Have the ability to renumber to a set criterion: All selected levels based on the increment of 1, 10, 50, 100 etc.
• A column to show:
  • Only the entities used in the toolpath
  • Level set is good but needs more functionality: I would like to see a drop down that allows the user to select from the levels named. Like in excel when you create a list for a single cell and you get the drop down and select or deselect the box to have the item show or hide.
• I would like a way to lock a level. This could be for things like revision changes or construction geometry. Blanking is kind of a work around on this one.

[Chris Rizzo]

+ 1000 on the ability to modify colors to both levels and viewsheet tabs. (I think I sent this in as a request a while ago actually).

 

Most of us use weird level #'s in the attempt to provide visual clues as to groups of levels eg. 1111, 222222, 33333333,44444444.  This is our hackneyed method to see them as a "group" or cluster related to an operation set.  Colors would be a BIG help.

 

I'm not criticizing mcam developers or anyone, but they may not work on the same file for weeks or months like users do..and have to open it up years later and try and to discern things.  Nor provide a decent trail of bread-crumbs for co-workers to follow, or experience the pain of rev changes. They may just not use mcam in this way, and therefore havn't directly experienced the helpfulness these suggested features could provide. ? I certainly could be wrong.  Constructive criticism I hope however

[BenK]

I sent in the same request for adding colors to the level manager. Sounds like enough people want to see a change in the level manager hopefully CNC Software will take notice.