How do I blank entities without losing surface trimming?

[SlaveCam]

Currently using X7 (not sure if X8 and X9 behave similarly), and blanking entities out of the way (which is something I do a lot) makes a surface lose its trimming boundary. Is there any alternative to blanking, except hide/unhide, which behaves just the opposite (and a lot of superfluous clicks to do the same)? Also using layers feels a bit burdensome for this, as I don't want to keep every big entity on its own layer.

 

Most grateful.

[crazy^millman]

Why not use your levels to manage this? What they are for to use a level with what you want and then turn off a level with what you don't. I may have 100's of level in a file. I am working on one of the biggest files I have ever done. I think it will be over 1 gig when all said and finished for one part. 400 hours of machining for a part and I couldn't imagine trying to do it with blanking and hiding things. Take the time to use level and view sheets and I think you will see it will help you a lot.

 

Having said that your question does puzzle me some. You say the boundary with it goes missing. Is it a spline, arc, line or is if surfaces that make up the boundary? Sorry the way it is worded makes me think it is geometry and if it were on levels then what I said above would be a good solution to your problem.

 

HTH

 

Edit: I teach levels like this. I give you a 1000 prints and ask you to put them in a file cabinet. Do you take everything and shove it in the file cabinet or do you take the time up front to organize them? Only every going to use one print out of that 1000 then grabbing the one print and putting the rest into the cabinet is fine, but if you are going to be needing other prints then taking the time up front to do it makes sense. Levels are your organization process for a CAM file. Yes they can seem burdensome if not in the habit, but like any organzation process. Once you establish a process the process saves you effort in the grand scheme of things. Even if I gave you one print later to add to the cabinet and the cabinet is organized then it will be easy to work with one print or even another 1000.

Edited September 12, 2015 by 5th Axis Consulting

[Colin Gilchrist]

When a surface is trimmed in Mastercam, the software will automatically put the "parent" surface (un-trimmed surface) on the same level, but the software will automatically blank the entity. This behavior also happens with a spline. The un-trimmed entity is saved along with the new (trimmed) surface or spline. If you have a file with a single surface, and you trim that surface to a plane, take a look at the Levels Manager. You will see there are two entities on your level. That is the parent surface in the blanked state, and the trimmed surface in the normal un-blanked state.

 

I would not recommend using blank/un-blank to manage entities the way you are doing. The reason being exactly the issue you are describing. There are some commands that are available in Mastercam that are not on the normal menu. There is "Un-blank Some", which would let you enter the "blank" database, and choose which entities you want to "un-blank". It does add another layer to the work-flow when you use the command, but it would let you control what still stays blanked, so the parent surfaces don't just get mixed in with everything else.

[SlaveCam]

Thank you both. I only use blank entity to get something quickly out of the way of something when modeling, not to manage anything. I also use levels extensively for organising entities. I'm just looking for a way to do things with as few clicks as possible. Time is of the essence:)

[crazy^millman]

Thank you both. I only use blank entity to get something quickly out of the way of something when modeling, not to manage anything. I also use levels extensively for organising entities. I'm just looking for a way to do things with as few clicks as possible. Time is of the essence:)

Okay I follow you on that one.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Gotcha. What I tend to do is use "Hide" which is "CTRL + E" on the keyboard. I use the Quick Mask Toolbar to get exactly what I want selected, (again, quickly), and then I use Hide to only keep what I need to look at.

 

In addition to using the Quick Masks to quickly select what I want, you can Left Click on a mask type to select "ALL" of something, or Right-Click, which puts you in "ONLY" mode, I also use the "Invert Selection" button on the General Selection toolbar. This, in combination with the quick mask stuff can really be very quick to only leave the entities on the screen that you want to deal with. When you are in "Hide" mode, those entities that aren't displayed have less of a tendency of getting lost...

[Fred @ Slate Industries]

Never use Blank

Use Alt E "Hide" / (All color/ surfaces / wire frame on and on...

[jlw™]

I use layers then hope I never have to move a solid. I think of my layers as sketches in the tree of SE but then you have that in mc too. I'd like to see the geo get associated to solid manager and only appear when you turn it on. Then it'd be out of the way of the real work but you could bring it back if needed.

 

To be honest it hasn't really bothered me since I started using viewsheets. A viewsheet for every "set" of layers i need to view separately. Nowadays I'll have a bunch of viewsheets. I keep waiting on it to tell me I've hit the limit.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

I always blank my parent geo in solids

 

But in surfaces you do not need it at all

Thimmed surface build by definition from untrimmed surface so

the system keeps parent untrimmed surface and trimming elements in blanked state.

So you never need them too. You can delete your cutting geo the trimmed surface will stay safe

you can always build in a sec curves with create curve command if you suddenly need them

THere is no assosiativity with your curves system keeps curves for description in blanked state.

BUt if you WILL mess with BLANKed geo for trimmed surface nothing will help you will screw it.

Do not deal with blank entities and you will always drink martini.

Or good old whiskey

 

BR