Opti Toolpaths not respecting the boundary

[Thee Rickster ™]

I'll give that a shot as well.

Can't hurt.

 

Thanks.

just remember, i dont do 5 axis, just 3d molds and use the opticore for inserts that

i cut, bolted to a insert mounting plate, so the insert is finished profiled, complete

[Henk]

To be really sure that the tool stay inside the boundry:

• move/project the boundry above the part.
• create draft surfaces from that boundry.
• add those surfaces to the operation.

[Newbeeee™]

I f you can submit a file to [email protected] it would be greatly appreciated.

 

just in case this slipped through the first maintenance update

Did that via our reseller.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

I don't know if this has been discussed.

If it has, my apologies.

 

This past week I was working with a customer on some complex 5-axis work.

Mostly 3+2 work so we tried to take advantage of the Opti toolpaths.

 

<RANT ON>

 

Does anyone but me find it infuriating that Opti toolpaths refuse to respect the boundary?

If found Opti-Core to be downright infuriating in the results it produces when using a boundary.

 

What is the point of having a boundary if the toolpath exceeds it?

i don't want to hear about work-arounds.

I found those on my own.

 

IMHO, this is a colossal screw-up in functionality.

If you can't depend on a boundary to work correctly then the software is worthless.

 

<RANT OFF>

What version are you running, I assume not X9? In previous versions OptiCore is using 'Material' boundaries not  'Containment'. In X9 we simply did away with the terms area and core and introduced From Outside and Stay Inside, but the behavior is the same as it always has been.

 

OptiCore = Dynamic OptiRough 'From outside' in X9 meaning approach the boundary from outside of it

OptiArea = Dynamic OptiRough 'Stay inside' in X9 meaning contain all motion inside the boundary

 

Please notice the interface in X8 for OptiCore does not ask for a 'Containment' boundary, it asks for a 'Material' boundary. The behavior you are describing above is based on 'Containment' behavior while you are using a toolpath that uses 'Material' behavior. I suggest you use OptiRest as it always uses 'Containment' behavior. it will still approach material from outside if it can fit between the boundary and the edge of your stock model shape.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

What version are you running, I assume not X9? In previous versions OptiCore is using 'Material' boundaries not  'Containment'. In X9 we simply did away with the terms area and core and introduced From Outside and Stay Inside, but the behavior is the same as it always has been.

 

OptiCore = Dynamic OptiRough 'From outside' in X9 meaning approach the boundary from outside of it

OptiArea = Dynamic OptiRough 'Stay inside' in X9 meaning contain all motion inside the boundary

 

Please notice the interface in X8 for OptiCore does not ask for a 'Containment' boundary, it asks for a 'Material' boundary. The behavior you are describing above is based on 'Containment' behavior while you are using a toolpath that uses 'Material' behavior. I suggest you use OptiRest as it always uses 'Containment' behavior. it will still approach material from outside if it can fit between the boundary and the edge of your stock model shape.

 

Dave,

 

Thanks for the information.

It was indeed X8.

 

I'm still at a bit of a loss to understand the purpose of a 'Material Boundary' if it isn't containment.

Just trying to understand the logic behind it.

 

 

Now, can you also please tell me why Opti still treats Check Surfaces as Drive Surfaces?

[BenK]

 

 

I'm still at a bit of a loss to understand the purpose of a 'Material Boundary' if it isn't containment.

Just trying to understand the logic behind it.

 

 

Now, can you also please tell me why Opti still treats Check Surfaces as Drive Surfaces?

 

You need to think of it as a "Material Boundary" for "from outside" and "Containment boundary" for "Stay inside". 

 

Dave, I agree with Tim on the Check Surfaces. We need the control over this. The ability to separate stock to leave on check surfaces and cut surfaces is very helpful. I use check surfaces for things like clamps or other fixture components. Sometimes I'm only leaving a few thousands on my cut surface but around my clamp I need .050" or more. The way it is now I need to create geometry and offset it for this purpose.   

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

You need to think of it as a "Material Boundary" for "from outside" and "Containment boundary" for "Stay inside". 

 

Dave, I agree with Tim on the Check Surfaces. We need the control over this. The ability to separate stock to leave on check surfaces and cut surfaces is very helpful. I use check surfaces for things like clamps or other fixture components. Sometimes I'm only leaving a few thousands on my cut surface but around my clamp I need .050" or more. The way it is now I need to create geometry and offset it for this purpose.   

 

 

 

What's so bizarre about this issue with Opti toolpaths is that you can pick check surfaces all day long.

As soon as you accept all your Op settings you'll get a message saying the operation will treat check surfaces as drives surfaces.

 

If this is by design I would LOVE to hear the logic behind the decision.

A check surface is just that.

It is not a drive surface so treating it as if it is  is a serious flaw.

 

Given the silence on this issue I can only conclude that it doesn't matter to them.

[Newbeeee™]

*perhaps* a question on the other forum could be asked...

 

/Tin Hats on

[Müřlıń®]

I have recreated boundaries, removed splines from them, removed corners altogether.

i've even created a basic rectangle with fillets as a boundary.

All of this to no avail.

I would love to know what constitutes a 'correct' boundary since this problem doesn't exist

with the other non-opti toolpaths.

 

Making the boundary slightly larger and then using the offset is something I haven't tried.

 

The fact that X9 has an option button to tell the path to "Stay inside" or "from the outside" has me just shaking my head.

 

Why on earth do you need to tell the system to respect the boundary?

That's the whole purpose of a boundary in the first place.

What does your boundary look like?

I find it unessessry alot of the time to use anything but a square or a circle.....no matter what the part geometry looks like.....sometimes I will add a little extension here and there but my boundaries are very rudimentary and are not shaped like the part at all for the opti...

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

What does your boundary look like?

I find it unessessry alot of the time to use anything but a square or a circle.....no matter what the part geometry looks like.....sometimes I will add a little extension here and there but my boundaries are very rudimentary and are not shaped like the part at all for the opti...

 

 

Perhaps that is the issue.

In this particular case, I needed very discrete control of the roughing.

Just couldn't get it efficiently with Opti but in fairness, I didn't try Opti-Rest like Dave suggested.

I'm going to give that a shot the next time I working with it.

 

I'm still trying to understand what the heck a material boundary is anyway.

The idea that you need anything other than a containment boundary seems to complicate the Opti toolpaths needlessly.

 

Stock should work like it's supposed to.

Check surfaces should work like they are supposed to.

Boundaries should work like they are supposed to.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

Check as Drive - Yes, it seems illogical that we switch your Check to Drive after you select everything. Drive and Check are simply words, so we let users think they are selecting Drive and  Check, but we are honest and tell you we made the Check become Drive. To explain why we do this in that message would be silly as it would be longer than this post If we remove or grey out 'Check' the phones would ring, so we do what we do. It allows people to think consistently while allowing the software to set itself up the way it works. You see, we do not 'machine' Drive data when roughing, we essentially ignore it or stay away from it right? It's actually more like Check if you think about it! When you finish machine you machine the Drive data, you target it, not the space around it. When finishing you need to tell Mastercam to Check against something you do not wish to target hence 'Check' surfaces.  Roughing targets the space or volume around the Drive data you select, not the Drive data direct. Furthermore, space around your model is infinite when you're not using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology as rest roughing accurately describes the volume you wish to rough away. So when you are not using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology for 'Core/From outside' or 'Area/Stay inside' we still need to limit infinite space, this is where containment boundary behavior comes into play. Even if you don't select a containment boundary we are using one, we derive one from your Drive selection as a min/max box. Go ahead and rough a sphere with no boundary, why do you think the motion appears to be using a square boundary? All roughing is Rest Roughing isn't it? Are you ever not starting with a stock shape and rouging it away in multiple steps or slices or stepdowns in the real world (3D printing doesn't count )? So we support two ways to approach the boundary when you are not using Rest Roughing technology in Mastercam. We do this because we are guessing what the volume is you wish to rough, you haven't told us so we need some hints and the 'Core/From outside' or 'Area/Stay inside' give us the hints we need to best guess the space or volume to target.

• 'Area/Stay inside' - boundary is true tool containment, the tool must stay inside or it and machine the space between it and the Drive 
• 'Core/From outside' - the boundary represents the silhouette of the stock shape and the tool is allowed to come from outside it to approach material 

When you are using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology we only support 'Area/Stay inside' because you are explicitly defining the volume, we do not have to guess the space or volume. So if you want us to approach from outside the stock shape you defined on the rest material page you better make sure your boundary is large enough to allow the tool to fit between it and the edge of the stock you want to approach. Or you can simply go the the Tool Containment page and set the 'Compensate to' to 'Outside' which in essence offsets your boundary making it bigger so you don't have to use CAD to offset your wireframe.

 

Why do we support all these ways to Rough and not simply settle on forcing everything to Rest Roughing you ask? Because Mastercam has been around since 1984 along with other CAM systems we all have legacy behaviors deeply ingrained from the beginning before rest roughing technology existed. Maybe its Dogma...or maybe if we removed everything except Rest Roughing and forced users to define stock everytime they would attack us and complain they can no longer simply 'rough'

 

So Personally- To keep my life simpler when I machine with Mastercam I only ever us Rest Roughing technology so there is only one method to understand and master. I start with a Stock Model operation, define my starting stock shape fixtured to the table and simply begin with rest Roughing.

 

 

---It's a Rest Roughing World, is it not?

Edited October 1, 2015 by David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

Check as Drive - Yes, it seems illogical that we switch your Check to Drive after you select everything. Drive and Check are simply words, so we let users think they are selecting Drive and  Check, but we are honest and tell you we made the Check become Drive. To explain why we do this in that message would be silly as it would be longer than this post If we remove or grey out 'Check' the phones would ring, so we do what we do. It allows people to think consistently while allowing the software to set itself up the way it works. You see, we do not 'machine' Drive data when roughing, we essentially ignore it or stay away from it right? It's actually more like Check if you think about it! When you finish machine you machine the Drive data, you target it, not the space around it. When finishing you need to tell Mastercam to Check against something you do not wish to target hence 'Check' surfaces.  Roughing targets the space or volume around the Drive data you select, not the Drive data direct. Furthermore, space around your model is infinite when you're not using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology as rest roughing accurately describes the volume you wish to rough away. So when you are not using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology for 'Core/From outside' or 'Area/Stay inside' we still need to limit infinite space, this is where containment boundary behavior comes into play. Even if you don't select a containment boundary we are using one, we derive one from your Drive selection as a min/max box. Go ahead and rough a sphere with no boundary, why do you think the motion appears to be using a square boundary? All roughing is Rest Roughing isn't it? Are you ever not starting with a stock shape and rouging it away in multiple steps or slices or stepdowns in the real world (printing metal doesn't count )? So we support two ways to approach the boundary when you are not using Rest Roughing technology in Mastercam. We do this because we are guessing what the volume is you wish to rough, you haven't told us so we need some hints and the 'Core/From outside' or 'Area/Stay inside' give us the hints we need to best guess the space or volume to target.

• 'Area/Stay inside' - as true tool containment, the tool must stay inside or it and machine the space between it and the Drive 
• 'Core/From outside' - it represents the silhouette of the stock shape and the tool is allowed to come from outside it to approach material 

When you are using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology we only support 'Area/Stay inside' because you are explicitly defining the volume, we do not have to guess the space or volume. So if you want us to approach from outside the stock shape you defined on the rest material page you better make sure your boundary is large enough to allow the tool to fit between it and the edge of the stock you want to approach. Or you can simply go the the Tool Containment page and set the 'Compensate to' to 'Outside' which in essence offsets your boundary making it bigger so you don't have to use CAD to offset your wireframe.

 

So - To keep my life simpler when I machine with Mastercam I only ever us Rest Roughing technology so there is only one method to understand and master. I start with a Stock Model operation, define my starting stock shape fixtured to the table and simply begin with rest Roughing.

 

---It's a Rest Roughing World, is it not?

 

 

Dave,

 

No offense, that was the most convoluted explanation/justification I have ever heard.

You have Stock or a stock model already defined so the space is not infinite.

What this tells me is that Mastercam is still not stock aware.

Fair enough, just come out and say it.

 

Check Surfaces and Drive Surfaces are not just 'words'

They have very specific meanings and it is frustrating that

the people actually making the software don't see it that way.

 

However, I do appreciate the information and your taking the time to post it here.

I will definitely make use of it.

 

Many Thanks.

[jlw™]

 

 

So - To keep my life simpler when I machine with Mastercam I only ever us Rest Roughing technology so there is only one method to understand and master. I start with a Stock Model operation, define my starting stock shape fixtured to the table and simply begin with rest Roughing.

 

---It's a Rest Roughing World, is it not?

 

 

I get what your saying about check, in roughing it's basically all check.

 

You must not machine much, that would make a 2 hour path become a 16 hour path if you use "stay inside" because instead of making contour paths it goes right into trochoidal moves.  I would like to get the path of "from outside" to adhere to my hard bnoundaries, then I'd be good.  Stay inside changes the path.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

I get what your saying about check, in roughing it's basically all check.

 

 

Roughing or Finishing is irrelevant.

You should be able to rough/finish any part and specifically indicate which faces/surfaces are not to be violated and by how much.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

Dave,

 

No offense, that was the most convoluted explanation/justification I have ever heard.

You have Stock or a stock model already defined so the space is not infinite.

What this tells me is that Mastercam is still not stock aware.

Fair enough, just come out and say it.

 

Check Surfaces and Drive Surfaces are not just 'words'

They have very specific meanings and it is frustrating that

the people actually making the software don't see it that way.

 

However, I do appreciate the information and your taking the time to post it here.

I will definitely make use of it.

 

Many Thanks.

 It's not always pretty when you peek behind the curtain.

 

 You must go back to the original issue in this post. They were not using rest roughing, they were using OptiCore and didn’t understand how we approached boundaries and why. 

 

In regards to your comment:

You have Stock or a stock model already defined so the space is not infinite.

 

Yes, That's what I said about Rest roughing:

'When you are using Mastercam Rest Roughing technology we only support 'Area/Stay inside' because you are explicitly defining the volume, we do not have to guess the space or volume."

[BenK]

David,

I myself use Rest Rough for most everything but even with that I would like to see check work in the same way it does in other paths. I see what you are saying about the "behind the scenes" way it figures it out, but for us end users having the ability to specify a separate stock to leave saves us time and clutter in our files by not having to create extra geometry. Check surfaces can be used simply as surfaces you wish to avoid by a given amount. I have an example I can send you if you would like. I created offset surfaces as avoidance instead of just being able to select them as check and input a value that would avoid them. 

[Colin Gilchrist]

Dave,

 

I think an easy solution would be to allow the algorithm to simply apply a separate "offset" value from the Drive and Check surfaces. I think that is the key behavior that is missing from the selection. What I believe most users want is the ability to leave a certain amount of stock (offset from the drive surfaces), but also be able to leave a different offset amount from the "check" surfaces. Essentially two groups of surfaces, each with a separate offset value.

 

Guys, am I misreading the behavior you are looking for in the software? How do you expect it to treat a check surface? Is this a surface that you absolutely do not want the toolpath to even touch? (In other words, if I select a "check" surface, and it is partially extended into the "stock" volume, what should happen?)

 

I think a "check" surface should be handled a little differently than how you are currently doing it. Take the surface, create a 2D boundary (Z depth determined by the lowest point on the surface), and project that 2D "check" boundary until it intersects the Material Boundary. Then trim away the "check" portion of that boundary. When you use +- controls on the Check offset, it would essentially end up being a 2D offset of the Check boundary, and then the "volume" of stock would be trimmed away. (Generate no cut motion "above" or "below" wherever the check surface(s) reside in relationship to the stock volume.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

I get what your saying about check, in roughing it's basically all check.

 

You must not machine much, that would make a 2 hour path become a 16 hour path if you use "stay inside" because instead of making contour paths it goes right into trochoidal moves.  I would like to get the path of "from outside" to adhere to my hard bnoundaries, then I'd be good.  Stay inside changes the path.

I machine plenty.

 

You are mixing up two concepts. The concept of roughing without telling mastercam the stock shape and the concept of rest roughing when you do tell mastercam the stock shape. Two very, very different worlds, you can't apply the same thinking to both as you are trying to do.

 

What you are explaining above can be provided through rest roughing. I am more than happy to confront all your questions live in a gotomeeting...

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

Dave,

 

I think an easy solution would be to allow the algorithm to simply apply a separate "offset" value from the Drive and Check surfaces. I think that is the key behavior that is missing from the selection. What I believe most users want is the ability to leave a certain amount of stock (offset from the drive surfaces), but also be able to leave a different offset amount from the "check" surfaces. Essentially two groups of surfaces, each with a separate offset value.

 

Guys, am I misreading the behavior you are looking for in the software? How do you expect it to treat a check surface? Is this a surface that you absolutely do not want the toolpath to even touch? (In other words, if I select a "check" surface, and it is partially extended into the "stock" volume, what should happen?)

 

I think a "check" surface should be handled a little differently than how you are currently doing it. Take the surface, create a 2D boundary (Z depth determined by the lowest point on the surface), and project that 2D "check" boundary until it intersects the Material Boundary. Then trim away the "check" portion of that boundary. When you use +- controls on the Check offset, it would essentially end up being a 2D offset of the Check boundary, and then the "volume" of stock would be trimmed away. (Generate no cut motion "above" or "below" wherever the check surface(s) reside in relationship to the stock volume.

Stay tuned.....

[BenK]

Colin,

You are understanding what I'm saying. I use it as an avoidance. 

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

Colin,

You are understanding what I'm saying. I use it as an avoidance. 

 

Ditto

[jlw™]

Roughing or Finishing is irrelevant.

You should be able to rough/finish any part and specifically indicate which faces/surfaces are not to be violated and by how much.

 

 

Completely agree, it should respect my boundary regardless of roughing, finishing or dry humping.

[Guest MTB Technical Services]

Completely agree, it should respect my boundary regardless of roughing, finishing or dry humping.

 

.

[Watcher]

what's aggrivating me now is all of the sudden when I copy and paste it loses all of my settings.

 

You would be surprised to know what some of their competitors are able to do with copy and paste, and ESPECIALLY, keeping your settings during these events. Easy to the point of simply picking your new orientation plane and everything else is automatically taken, including geometry.

 

Mastercam is indeed a good investment, but sometimes I find it backed up way to much by localism.

 

Edit: Don´t get me started about drag´n drop in some stuff out there... You wouldn´t believe me.

[David Conigliaro CNC Software Inc.]

That's the difference that comes from people who machine for a living and those who do it in a lab with Aluminum.

-Tim Markoski

 

Ahhh assumption, that explains a lot. I have plenty of time on real machines making real parts.

 

So this is the second unprovoked insult slung my way while I'm trying to help bring understanding. Please excuse my silence moving forward as I gracefully exit this thread...I feel my time can be better spent elsewhere.

 

-Colin - you're still  alright at least you are capable of articulating what is needed....and it is coming