View T/plane information relative to WCS

[jlw™]

Hello gentlemen,

 

I'm in the process of migrating from Esprit and wanting to find something in Mastercam that I use in Esprit... if it has it.  I would like to see T/plane information that includes angle information.  I know I can mouse over the status bar and get XYZ coords but I want to know angle info as well.

I also know that I can use analyze dynamic but it only returns one angle and I have no clue what it's relative to.

 

I pretty much want to know where my rotary axes are going by looking at plane information.  In most cases it's calculated by T/plane so I think one should be able to find this information - I just haven't found it yet.

 

I would greatly appreciate any help!

 

 

JW

[Guyinthedesert]

The only way I've found to do it is to display the matrix data for that work plane.

[jlw™]

I just searched help and nothing came back on matrix data.  How does one display the matrix data for work plane?

[jlw™]

Well, I found the matrix.  From plane manager, right click on plane, click info.

 

The matrix... how do I get angles out of that?

[crazy^millman]

Well, I found the matrix.  From plane manager, right click on plane, click info.

 

The matrix... how do I get angles out of that?

 

That I am aware of you don't they don't understand that in the software.

[jlw™]

So, do you know where I can find angle information?  It obviously comes from some where...

[Guyinthedesert]

So, do you know where I can find angle information?  It obviously comes from some where...

You can calculate the angle from the matrix data. It''s not real straight forward.

[jlw™]

Hello gentlemen,

 

I've figured out how to find the angle information I want.  Provided you can do the complimentary angle math it's really easy to determine rotary motion from the analyze angle values.

 

I started by creating points on the TOP plane at 0,0,0 and 0,0,1 and then drew a line connecting them.  I then did the same thing on my created plane.  I used "Analyze Angle" in 3D and it returned the values I was wanting.  You can do the complimentary angle math to check your rotary motion or verify G68 outputs.

 

I'll attach pictures when I get time.

[crazy^millman]

Hello gentlemen,

 

I've figured out how to find the angle information I want.  Provided you can do the complimentary angle math it's really easy to determine rotary motion from the analyze angle values.

 

I started by creating points on the TOP plane at 0,0,0 and 0,0,1 and then drew a line connecting them.  I then did the same thing on my created plane.  I used "Analyze Angle" in 3D and it returned the values I was wanting.  You can do the complimentary angle math to check your rotary motion or verify G68 outputs.

 

I'll attach pictures when I get time.

 

Yes all basic geometry, but that was not your original question. I have for years asked for what you have asked for in the Plane Manager. I would like to see the ABC of XYZ in the Plane manager. I would also like the ability to adjust the angles in there just like we can the XYZ values. I had hoped more people would chime into this topic as I get the grumpy old troll tag way to much. Current process is do like what you just stated, or post something or use inspection software inside of the Mastercam (Verisurf) to figure it out. To change the angle of any plane is much easier than previous versions, but not as robust as I an others would like to see it.

 

I think you would like to see a more robust way as well?

[Müřlıń®]

ya just tag the gnome with the angle relative to world WCS so you could see it when you entered that custom wcs....its set up for that already...

 

you would need to be able click on the gnome to see angles and esc to turn the angles off.

[Tyler Robotson]

Ron, could the ABC be tied to a machine def.?  Otherwise, depending on calculation angles this angle information could change depending on the calculation convention of a given machine.. ie: RzRyRx, RzRyRz, etc.   There's a lot of different ways to calculate a position, a rotation matrix of unit vectors being the most 'generic'.       You know what you're looking for, but if someone else is taking angles and doesn't apply them correctly to their machine they might be reading the wrong angle from their places... but I guess someone would have to know that with analyze angle anyway. 

 

If you just need to set them, dynamic planes can be great, but after that .. I agree, annoying to just have xyz

[crazy^millman]

Ron, could the ABC be tied to a machine def.?  Otherwise, depending on calculation angles this angle information could change depending on the calculation convention of a given machine.. ie: RzRyRx, RzRyRz, etc.   There's a lot of different ways to calculate a position, a rotation matrix of unit vectors being the most 'generic'.       You know what you're looking for, but if someone else is taking angles and doesn't apply them correctly to their machine they might be reading the wrong angle from their places... but I guess someone would have to know that with analyze angle anyway. 

 

If you just need to set them, dynamic planes can be great, but after that .. I agree, annoying to just have xyz

 

Yes really so many different things someone could come up with to get the information they are looking for. Everything I have seen over the years the machine is the last thing Mastercam ever looks to for the environment. Being able to associate to that would be great, but then we go in then we go in a completely different direction when you start looking at 3rd party software and how the process a place in space. Robot Software handle it like a machine tool, but Inspection handles it totally different. A base process where we could get more information from the get is really more what I thought this topic would turn into. Again many ways to get matrix information, but to quickly get it in the plane manager on any plane is not a simple process.

 

Here is a current plane on a 5 Axis Impeller I am programming. Quickly tell me the angles of ABC from this information.

Name                : INDEX PLANE FOR HST TOOLPATH
Comment             : 
Coordinate display  : MILL COORD
Color               : 10
Associative         : No
Reserved            : No
Locked              : No
ID                  : 53
View #              : 61
Origin world        : X0. Y0. Z0.
Matrix              : X0.871 Y-0. Z-0.4912
                    : X0.0057 Y0.9999 Z0.0101
                    : X0.4912 Y-0.0116 Z0.871
*** Plane Usage ***
Toolpath operation  : 2D High Speed (2D Peel Mill)
     Used in operation Tplane
     Used in operation Cplane

We could use a calculation process like this, but it would be nice if we could get something that communicates more information than what we currently have.

 

http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/geometry/rotations/conversions/matrixToAngle/

 

or we can start to develop our own process depending how deep we want to dig into the whole process.

 

http://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_60a_release/mathutils.html

 

Again I can cheat many different ways to see what I am after, but here is a topic where I see adding robustness to the software would answer this question and maybe many more other have that the current process lacks to answer in a better way. I am going back under my bridge. :scooter:

[jlw™]

I totally agree, while I did find the information I wanted it'd be great to have this handily displayed alongside the XYZ in the plane manager.

 

I have used Edgecam, Esprit and now Mastercam and not one of these 5 axis software developers have had the foresight to put this information in a readily accessed, easily understandable format.

 

If this were added it'd be another notch in the bed post for MC.

[Dave Allen]

Jwright, What do you think of Edgecam? Sales guy showed us a demo of how it can do automatic feature based machining with very little data input.

Wondering if its as easy as it looks in the video.

[jlw™]

It is as easy in THEIR DEMO files But remember those are made to show how easy it is. You've got to do some setup work which is time consuming and I ended up not using it. the last time I had my hands on it was 2009 r1 and the feature recognition was flaky. I think it was called solid machinist then and it was supposed to be native to Solidworks files but it would not always recognize features and when you refresh the model if you make changes in Solidworks you had to redo feature recognition on unchanged features. Having said that, that was 6 years ago. I do really like Edgecam and their waveform gives my preferred trochoid path. They also put out more updates than Windows. Things are more straight forward... steeps are called something silly like Z depths.

 

That's pretty much all of my gripes so as a CAM user yourself that should say something. If I remember correctly, they have a menu based post editing tool that is just handy dandy. Are you considering changing to it from MC?