Mastercam 2017 Update 2

[crazy^millman]

is that where the little grey squares pop up in the top left corner? I seriously wish I could turn that off.

I believe it is part of the software kit and now a windows standard part of the process. I really wish we could get an option to turn it off because I really dislike it.

[jlw™]

yeah, jlw's list of things detested in order of most detested to least detested:

 

1. little grey boxes

2. stipple highlight

3. grid

4. a flat tire when I leave work early to go home for a mid day rendezvous

[Colin Gilchrist]

Jeremy,

 

To turn of the "Stipple" highlighting:

 

File (Backstage View) > Configuration > Screen Menu

 

Disable the checkbox for "Use dashed on wireframe". You can also turn off the "Use stipple on solids/surfaces".

 

Also, try turning on the "50ms" delay on the Solid Face highlighting. This will make it much, much easier to select Wireframe geometry, when it is lying near/on a solid face.

 

HTH,

 

Colin

[Newbeeee™]

 

Yeah, when you hit <Alt>, then to get into toolpaths you hit <J> <M>.

 

Access keys in 2017 take way more keystrokes than in X9, and were selected expressly to not make sense.  For example, in X9 one of my most used toolpaths is <Alt> <T> <F> <F>, for Alt Toolpaths Finish Flowline.  Makes sense and takes four keystrokes and about a quarter of a second.  In 2017 it's <Alt> <J> <M> <F> <F> <L>, which stands for what exactly?  I seriously want to know what was going through their heads when they thought this was a good idea.

 

Face, X9: <Alt> <T> <A>

Face, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <F>

 

Contour, X9: <Alt> <T> <C>

Contour, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <C>

 

Drill, X9: <Alt> <T> <D>

Drill, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <H> <D> - WTF?!  What's the "H" supposed to stand for?

 

 

Really, since toolpathing is the primary purpose of Mastercam, why did they make access to the Toolpath menu more difficult?

 

Since most of us are professional users for whom time is money, why did they make it slower to use?

 

Because the marketing department wanted eye candy, that's why.

 

And yes, the survey I posted here did show that more people find 2017 slower than X9.

 

This^^^

Couldn't agree more Matt. 100%.

[hlibhlib]

This^^^

Couldn't agree more Matt. 100%.

+1

[Guest]

 

Yeah, when you hit <Alt>, then to get into toolpaths you hit <J> <M>.

 

Access keys in 2017 take way more keystrokes than in X9, and were selected expressly to not make sense.  For example, in X9 one of my most used toolpaths is <Alt> <T> <F> <F>, for Alt Toolpaths Finish Flowline.  Makes sense and takes four keystrokes and about a quarter of a second.  In 2017 it's <Alt> <J> <M> <F> <F> <L>, which stands for what exactly?  I seriously want to know what was going through their heads when they thought this was a good idea.

 

Face, X9: <Alt> <T> <A>

Face, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <F>

 

Contour, X9: <Alt> <T> <C>

Contour, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <C>

 

Drill, X9: <Alt> <T> <D>

Drill, 2017: <Alt> <J> <M> <D> <H> <D> - WTF?!  What's the "H" supposed to stand for?

 

 

Really, since toolpathing is the primary purpose of Mastercam, why did they make access to the Toolpath menu more difficult?

 

Since most of us are professional users for whom time is money, why did they make it slower to use?

 

Because the marketing department wanted eye candy, that's why.

 

And yes, the survey I posted here did show that more people find 2017 slower than X9.

 

 

You've gotta remember, most of the coders around these days don't remember the DOS days or worse, the whipper snappers weren't even a gleam in their daddy's eye yet. So, it's ALL about "feel" and not necessarily efficiency for them. I remember when 2017 was in early Beta, in Mastercam's Beta forum some if us geezers offended quite a few in the UI department. As Microsoft's UI goes, so does ours. It's just the nature of the beast these days. And the n00bs... those fockers like that eye candy app $#!+. :

 

 

Yes.. they get very unhappy when you submit a show stopper... 2 days before the planned release date  

 

 

It felt good when I flagged one. :

 

[Mick]

The +D+Z issue seriously messes with my usage of 2017 for lathe. Right now, it is 2017 for mill, and X9 for lathe. Mill Turn, well...

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

You've gotta remember, most of the coders around these days don't remember the DOS days or worse, the whipper snappers weren't even a gleam in their daddy's eye yet. So, it's ALL about "feel" and not necessarily efficiency for them. I remember when 2017 was in early Beta, in Mastercam's Beta forum some if us geezers offended quite a few in the UI department. As Microsoft's UI goes, so does ours. It's just the nature of the beast these days. And the n00bs... those fockers like that eye candy app $#!+.  :

 

Okay, let's compare Mastercam to Starcraft II, the world's premier digital sport.

 

Professional Starcraft II players and other serious players do not click icons.  That's way too slow for competitive play.  As a matter of fact, using keystrokes is the #1 tip on this "how to play" instructional:

 

 

 

Seven Settings To Improve Your Play

In this article we look at some of the settings in Starcraft 2 that can help improve your play.

Game settings are something people will often neglect, but optimising them is simple and it can benefit your play immediately. In this article we will go through some of the settings that you can change in-game and what they will do for you.

 

Display the Command Hotkeys

In a previous article I discussed the importance of learning to use hotkeys in SC2. This setting shows the hotkey for each command on the command button itself rather than the tooltip (popup box when you mouse over the command).

Benefits

Having the hotkeys for each command easily visible can make learning them just a little bit easier. Once you have learned them all you will simply forget about even looking in that corner of the screen but for now this setting is one you should definitely enable.

How to Change This Setting

To display the command hotkeys:

1. Go to the ‘Options’ menu,
2. Open the Gameplay tab, and,
3. Check the ‘Command Hotkey Text’ box.

 

- http://learningsc2.com/tag/hotkeys/

 

As you may notice, no matter where you are in the menu system, every command or menu drill-down is a single keystroke, and it corresponds to a key-word.  <M>ove, <S>top, <A>ttack, etc.  V9 followed these rules and was very fast and efficient to use.  Don't you think today's whippersnappers would like a Starcraft II style interface?

[Guest]

Okay, let's compare Mastercam to Starcraft II, the world's premier digital sport.

 

Professional Starcraft II players and other serious players do not click icons.  That's way too slow for competitive play.  As a matter of fact, using keystrokes is the #1 tip on this "how to play" instructional:

 

 

- http://learningsc2.com/tag/hotkeys/

 

As you may notice, no matter where you are in the menu system, every command or menu drill-down is a single keystroke, and it corresponds to a key-word.  <M>ove, <S>top, <A>ttack, etc.  V9 followed these rules and was very fast and efficient to use.  Don't you think today's whippersnappers would like a Starcraft II style interface?

 

Interesting take...

 

Why would other CAD or CAM Systems gravitate to this new ribbon bar interface as well then?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Interesting take...

 

Why would other CAD or CAM Systems gravitate to this new ribbon bar interface as well then?

 

By coding your software using the UI / UX guidelines laid out by Microsoft, it allows you to take advantage of the Dot Net (.Net) framework and in many cases, allows smoother cross-platform integration. Dot Net is like a huge software library that is designed to give you access to the Windows Operating System, and other Windows technologies. (ASP, XML, XHTML, SQL)

 

Think of it like this; would you rather learn how to program a Renishaw Probe by having access to the Renishaw Macros that came installed with your probe package, or write every internal routine by scratch?

 

That's a crude analogy, but the idea is somewhat similar. If you want to program for the current MS operating system(s), then it makes sense to use their libraries and 'style guides' for program construction. I personally dislike the ribbon in the strongest terms possible, but I understand the 'why' of that decision.

 

Dot Net, in combination with Visual Studio allows you to leverage a RAD framework (Rapid Application Development) that not only includes tools for building your application, but critical functions like automated testing and code metrics (analysis) to design more efficient programs. This gets to be very difficult on a program with as many interlinked functions as Mastercam. There are dependencies upon dependencies, and so many places where these internal routines could cause a significant delay in processing time if these issues are not identified and the code is not optimized for maximum efficency.

 

That said, as far as I'm aware, besides pressing the ALT key to activate the keystroke menu, the design of which keystrokes activate a given function are not dictated by using the Microsoft technologies.

 

I believe some of the limitations are simply self-imposed, and part of the reason is due to CNC Software's desire to use the Keystrokes to also do data entry. I've also seen that most of the menu groups on the Ribbon expand into 'sub-groups', which just adds another layer of separation in the keystroke choices.

 

They are choking the life out of power users that prefer to drive based on keystrokes by going this route. I would bet that 98% of the focus and testing in the User Interface department is focused on making selections using the mouse.

[jlw™]

They are choking the life out of power users that prefer to drive based on keystrokes by going this route. I would bet that 98% of the focus and testing in the User Interface department is focused on making selections using the mouse.

 

 

 

I wish they valued your opinion like I do!

 

I'm fine with the tab bar.

 

If they would fix the tab key order I'd be happy for at least a other release. Then I'll start complaining again.

[TERRYH]

We just recently within the last 6 months made the jump to X9 and was considering going ahead and  making the jump to 2017 because of the issues we have with X9 but it sounds to me like it is no better and pushed out way before it was correct. Wish they would make one good solid version and support it for any and all bugs found in it before releasing another version all in the name of "making it Pretty". And yes I know and have been told in other threads that there is no perfect software, but when you are dealing with high dollar parts and 1 million dollar plus machines it really burns my arse to know what I am using to run that machine is not as close to 100% as possible. I hate making mistakes when it is my fault and I miss something, and I am harder on myself when I screw something up than anyone I work for could be, but I should not have to also be worried about software bugs on top of it. 

[Thee Rickster ™]

We have 5 seats here and no one had this issue.

For me personally, MC2017 has been the most stable version of Mastercam to date

I do realize that doesn't do a thing for the people suffering the Tool Manager crash though.

 

you stll have to save/close/restart 3 or 4 times a day when the cache bogs up an the simplest

of functions start getting confused or stop working

 

Never had the tool crash problem, 2017 been working pretty stable

for me accept for the above thing.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Maintenance just came up.   It's never been a hard decision before.

[Jim at Gentex]

OK just installed the update.

I never experienced the tool manager issue either, but I understand some people had fits with it.

 

Since I was not one of those, I will chalk it up to clean living!   

[jlw™]

I never had it either.

 

Good clean living for sure.

[MIL-TFP-41]

OK just installed the update.

I never experienced the tool manager issue either, but I understand some people had fits with it.

 

Since I was not one of those, I will chalk it up to clean living!   

 

I'm in Utah, where there is no such thing as dirty living, and was hit with this like the plague. Might be time to change this states way of thinking????

[Guest]

I was running dll's from CNC to test and was crash free for the last couple weeks....

 

Last week I installed the update 2 and it definitely has solved the issue I was experiencing....

 

People, if anyone is still crashing via editing tools or the Tool Manager.....get update 2 installed ASAP

[SlaveCam]

I'm surprised at how stable the program is currently. Mastercam hasn't stopped working at all after the last update. It is dreadfully slow though; program startup, displaying the tool editor, verify... i7 just won't compute.

 

Did they rewrite everything in .NET?

[jlw™]

Sorry you're having problems.  2017 is significantly faster for me.  How long does it take you to start it?  I just timed it counting Mississippis and I get about 3 to 4 seconds.  I'm counting until it will let me have control.  Tool editor is practically instant.  The standalone tool editor takes about 2 Mississippis.  I downloaded an app called App Timer and it says 1.4 seconds to start it up but I'm counting until I can rotate/move with my space mouse.

[Colin Gilchrist]

I'm surprised at how stable the program is currently. Mastercam hasn't stopped working at all after the last update. It is dreadfully slow though; program startup, displaying the tool editor, verify... i7 just won't compute.

 

Did they rewrite everything in .NET?

 

What kind of graphics card do you have, and have your updated the drivers?

 

Are you on a laptop? You might need to configure your system to force it to use the card, insteadof the on board video.