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Active Reports: Minimum Z depth for each operation


saltedfish
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I've been trying to tighten up my tool report by condensing the info I need onto one sheet. One thing I'd really like is for each operation row to also contain it's minimum Z depth so I know how long to set the tool. I'm starting with a modified version of the default operation manager toolsheet for mills, which I've made into a master report (test report.rpx) and a subreport (-test subreport.rpx). My grasp of the Active Reports creation is a bit shaky, but my impression is that MasterCAM dumps a ton of info into an XML file and active reports sniffs through it and picks out the information you want and organizes it, based on the way the RPX file is laid out. I identified 5 different "minimum Z values" in the NCFILE branch:

  1. NCFILE: MIN-Z
  2. NCFILE/OPERATION: DEPTH
  3. NCFILE/OPERATION: MIN-Z
  4. NCFILE/OPERATION/TOOL: MIN-Z
  5. NCFILE/TOOLS/TOOL: MIN-Z

That is, each of these are the values that can be clicked and dragged into the main body of the report, where I assume ActiveReports slurps in the data that value indicates it should find.

 

 

My problem is that the values don't always load consistently. There seems to be an issue with the Recordset Pattern: //TOOL and //TOOLS seem to be the only applicable options that have any effect:

  • Master report: //TOOL, subreport: //TOOL — Master report Preview reverts to some strange default template with no numbers; subreport Preview has values for all 5
  • Master report: //TOOL, subreport: //TOOLS — Master report Preview reverts to some strange default template with no numbers; subreport Preview only has values for #3
  • Master Report: //TOOLS, subreport: //TOOL — Master report Preview shows values for #1, #4, and #5; supbreport Preview shows values for all 5
  • Master Report: //TOOLS, subreport: //TOOLS —  Master report Preview shows values for #1, #4, and #5; supbreport Preview only has values for  #3

Despite the fact that the last two combinations show something in the Preview function, when actually tested through MasterCAM, there's no values in any of the fields.

 

I'm wondering what I'm missing here, and hopefully someone can help me out.

 

2019-02-14 07_51_02-ActiveReports Viewer - [ tool report].png

test report.rpx

-test subreport.rpx

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Mr. Fish,

There is a Word doc available on Mastercam.com in their 'Mastercam Knowledge Base' called Active Reports Setup Sheets Tips and Tricks

It has a lot of very valuable information in it.

You are correct in some of your assumptions.  

Mastercam looks at the .rpx template and only gathers the information that you have requested for the xml file.  There is a way of having Mastercam output a complete list of all of the fields to the xml file using "The Secret Handshake".  The Word doc has those instructions in it.

If you output a complete xml file, you can see fields that you otherwise would not know were there.  For example, there are more min/max values than those you have listed in your post.

image.png.5b62116ad3739473b810ec9479b4febb.png

 

From the tips and tricks doc:

Node Hierarchy

 This is probably the most important rule to follow. Even if you do not use any data from a node, create a subreport that uses the node and calls the subreport of the next node level. Typical problems when nodes are not followed:

·         Data is repeated.

·         Data is limited.

·         Data is missing.

·         Image captures happen when none are used.

For example, if you use no data from the NCFILE, OPERATION, and TOOLS nodes, use subreports with those nodes specified in the Recordset Pattern.

Correct:                                                          Incorrect:

//SETUPSHEET                                           //SETUPSHEET

            //NCFILE                                                        //TOOL

                        //OPERATION

                                    //TOOL

                        //TOOLS

                                    //TOOL

Mastercam also looks at the name of the rpx file and gathers and parses information for a specific product like Mill, or Lathe.  You will see the different products in the tree list.  for example:  Operation-L, or Operation-T (for Text, Manual Entry).

 

I have been successful in outputting min/max values.  

image.png.42caaf30102533bb231aff5bf8941eb5.png

 

 

So much to learn... and I am such a novice.

 

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I recall reading this in the manual, but I don't understand what this means in a practical sense. I'm not even sure what this means:

 

"Even if you do not use any data from a node, create a subreport that uses the node and calls the subreport of the next node level"

 

Is this implying I need to make a chain of otherwise empty subreports before actually getting to the data I need? Is the Recordset entry I was talking about in my original post sort of like the root folder of a file system and I need to chain the file locations? I'm looking at the Creating Setupsheets with Active Reports PDF and it doesn't go into a lot of detail about how to use this Recordset aside from "it's a node that Active Reports looks for."

 

Can you break down in a little more detail how you got your setup sheet to work?

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7 hours ago, saltedfish said:

Is this implying I need to make a chain of otherwise empty subreports before actually getting to the data I need? Is the Recordset entry I was talking about in my original post sort of like the root folder of a file system and I need to chain the file locations? I'm looking at the Creating Setupsheets with Active Reports PDF and it doesn't go into a lot of detail about how to use this Recordset aside from "it's a node that Active Reports looks for."

The answer to this is:  Yes for the best results.

 

One of the reasons that you are seeing inconsistent results from the preview output is that the data that is being used to generate the preview report is an old sample xml file in the samples file directory.  It doesn't have your data and the tags could be different or not in that sample xml file.

Every time that you run a setup sheet, Mastercam makes a new xml file with the data that you requested via the rpx report.  This is not the full data set.  It only contains the data that AR (Active Reports) finds xml tags for in your report template (rpx files)

 

To generate a full data set xml file we need to invoke "The Secret Handshake".

Right mouse click in the Operations manager and select setup sheet.

Select the setup sheet that you want to run.

Hold down the control key and click on the Green Check box

You will be asked three questions:

Deactivate RPX Parser?                 Answer: No

Display messages?                          Answer: No

Write ALL data to XML file?          Answer: Yes

At this point all of the data from the Mastercam file will be written to the XML file.  This may take a while if there are many operations.  Normally Mastercam will only write the data needed from the RPX report and leave the rest out.

 

Navigate to c:\Users\Public\Public documents\shared Mcam2019\common\reports\XML

Sort by date and locate the XML file that you just created.

Open Chrome browser and drag and drop the XML file into Chrome.

It may take a few minutes depending on the size, but you should see the XML in a “document tree” format.

image.png.0e1927276282b99db78c568eef41fc86.png

 

 

From here you can search for 1277 (the number that we entered above for the program number)

You should see:    <PROG-NUM>1277</PROG-NUM>

 You can also see the hierarchy of where the data is located. 

In this case the PROG-NUM is located in OPERATION, which is located in NCFILE

 

If you have tried entering just PROG-NUM into the ActiveReports Designer and it doesn’t print out the Program number we will have to go to the next step.

In ActiveReports Designer, open the report that you want to modify.

Select the report data source icon and then navigate to the XML directory and select the XML file that we created earlier.

image.png.56e2bfc400c5ad2edc833033406d01a4.png

 

Click Okay

Now go to the Fields branch of the tree and start expanding, Bound, Document, SETUPSHEET, NCFILE, OPERATION

You should see the PROG-NUM field listed there.

 

If you want to find the NC file Name without the .NCI, Search in the Chrome XML file for the program name that you entered and you will see several occurrences of it.  The one that you want without the .NCI is:  NCIFILE-NAME

image.png.07916b8e3d078fb3b6d711124e65bca1.png

 

Drag and drop it onto the report.  You will see that the path is maintained and shows up as NCFILE/OPERATION/PROG-NUM

Sometimes you can get the data that you want to display by putting in extra path statements like:  ../   or ../../  or like the sample in the line above.

 

BUT:  this can cause AR to start at the beginning and take a screen capture for every operation, every tool, etc.   if you have a very large file with lots of operations, it might take half an hour to generate the report.

 

Report hierarchy:

One of the things that I have done to help me understand the relationships between the different reports and subreports is to document the outline structure of the reports.

I do this by opening up the main setup sheet and then looking at the sub reports and copying down the name of subs (indented), then I open the subs and do the same thing, and keep doing that until I have the complete outline of the report structure. 

Here is an example of the default MT setup sheet:

Setup sheet (MT) Sandvik.rpx

            -Setup Sheet (SZ) Sandvik.rpx

                        -setup sheet (SZ-M) Sandvik.rpx

                        -setup sheet (SZ-L) Sandvik.rpx

            -Setup Sheet (FILE) Sandvik.rpx

                        -Setup Sheet (OPERATION) Sandvik.rpx

                                    -Setup Sheet (OPERATION-L) Sandvik.rpx

                                                -Setup Sheet (TOOL) Sandvik.rpx

                                    -Setup Sheet (OPERATION-M) Sandvik.rpx

                                                -Setup Sheet (TOOL) Sandvik.rpx

                                    -Setup Sheet (OPERATION-T) Sandvik.rpx

                                                -Setup Sheet (MAN-ENT-INFO) Sandvik.rpx

                                                            -Setup Sheet (MAN-ENT-DATA) Sandvik.rpx

                        -Setup Sheet (TOOLS) Sandvik.rpx

                                    -setup sheet (Tool) Sandvik.rpx

                                                -Setup Sheet (TOOL-M) Sandvik.rpx

                                                -Setup Sheet (TOOL-L) Sandvik.rpx                                          

-Setup Sheet (LATHE-TOOL-HOLDER) Sandvik.rpx

-Setup Sheet (LATHE-TOOL-CUSTOM) Sandvik.rpx

-Setup Sheet (LATHE-TOOL-INSERT) Sandvik.rpx

-Setup Sheet (LATHE-TOOL-DRILL) Sandvik.rpx

-Setup Sheet (OP).rpx

 

When I create a new setup sheet, I typically start by copying all of the existing sheets to a safe location so that after I have buggered up one of the report templates and it no longer works correctly, I can go back and get the original rpx file and see what I did that caused it to stop working.

Another strategy that I use is to have several AR designers open with the templates that I am working on.  I will make a change but not close designer and try running a report.  If it is too messed up, I just click the undo button in designer (as many times as is necessary), save the file and run the report again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for the extensive write up! I really appreciate you taking the time to go through all of this with me, and provide screenshots to help.

 

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this concept. The basics are clear to me: when you tell MasterCam to create a setup sheet, it creates a record of all the data associated with the program in question and dumps it into an XML file. From there, the ActiveReports sifts through that file and extracts the data you've requested via the .rpx file. Some data (probably most of it) is ignored, and the rest is displayed as desired from the .rpx file.

 

Because of this, and the way the XML file is laid out, it is important to call on specific points of data inside the XML file, otherwise ActiveReports will pull in too much data, not enough, or none at all.

 

What I'm not understanding is that as near as I can tell, the subreport I am using calls on a specific node of specific information. I understand the concept of making sure your "filepath" (so to speak) is complete so that the program can follow it to the destination and retrieve the desired information. What I'm not understanding is how to ensure that "filepath" is complete.

 

Right now I have "test_report.rpx" and "-test_subreport.rpx" in the MSC folder under reports (bear in mind this is all practice and I'm trying to keep everything as simple as possible). I followed your instructions above and generated MA4CF.xml in the shared Mcam2017/common/reports/XML folder. I have pointed the test_report.rpx Report Data Source to this file, and made sure its Recordset Pattern is set to "//SETUPSHEET."

2019_02_19_06_55_14_ActiveReports_Designer_C_Users_Public_Documents_shared_Mcam2017_common_report.thumb.png.4ac434ec946c96bd8f7b01c6a15d233b.png

For "-test_subreport.rpx" (which is called on by the "test_report.rpx"), I have set the Report Data Source to the same file as above, and set the Recordset Pattern to //NCFILE. I did this because the //NCFILE node is subordinate to the //SETUPSHEET, and it is my thought that by "nesting" them so, the chain will be complete? For clarity, the -test_subreport.rpx has a number of different "min-z" values I clicked and dragged into the main body of the report. My hope was that by having a few of them, I would be able to get at least one to work and then make the connection. You can see a brief description of what each node is right above the node itself.

2019_02_19_06_57_25_Settings.png.39e37e45088d47e0ae53b69f4e3ffed2.png

However, running a preview of test_report.rpx shows nothing at all, and I feel as though I have accomplished nothing. I think my confusion stems from the issue that when you click and drag onto the report (as you describe above), it is my thought that when you do so, the whole chain leading to that node should be preserved automatically, so all this chaining and empty reports makes no sense to me. Why can't the program just know when you click and drag SETUPSHEET/NCFILE/OPERATION/MIN-Z that that is the node location to search for? It feels like I'm doing twice the work? Like I have to tell the computer where the thing it knows the location of, is? I see that the nodes I have boxed above are truncated, is this the problem? Why would ActiveReports automatically truncate the information it needs?

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15 hours ago, saltedfish said:

it creates a record of all the data associated with the program in question and dumps it into an XML file

Not exactly.  When you tell Mastercam to create a setup sheet, it looks at the RPX templates that you have specified and the operations that you selected and ONLY gathers that information from your Mastercam file and dumps that into an XML file.  This is why it is so important to be able to force Mastercam to do a complete dump of the data in a Mastercam file via "the secret handshake"

I feel your frustration.  There are days when AR really aggravates my tourette syndrome.

 

You can get AR to output some of the data that you want without doing a complete set of reports.  But if you have a very large file with hundreds of operations, the setup sheet generation time can take a very long time.  If you are doing simple every day stuff with 20 operations and 10 tools, it doesn't really matter if it takes several minutes to generate a tool list.

 

I have attached your sample setup sheets that generate the min Z value that you were looking for.

image.png.2420062964e23310da846b515dd6b90d.png

Place both of the rpx files in the SSD directory, not the misc directory, and then select setup sheet from the operation manager, (not Tool List) then press F2 to select your test report tool list.

 

See if you get the results that you are looking for.

Note that I did not delete all of your old fields, I just turned off the visibility.

 

As far as the truncated boxes that you are seeing, they are only labels showing what data fields you have selected.  You can rename them to anything that want.  They are only visible in designer.  

 

 

 

test report.rpx

 

-test subreport.rpx

Edited by Bill Craven
wrong file chosen for upload
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Ahhhh, that makes a little more sense. Is the secret handshake a permanent toggle, or will I need to do it every time?

 

As for my test of your supplied files (which I greatly appreciate you taking the time to whip up for me), this is the result when I put them in the SST folder (I do not have an SSD folder) and directed MasterCam to use the report:

1696546981_2019-02-2006_07_49-ActiveReportsViewer-3-AXISVMC.png.031ac8cb8e4b03b0353bb657d080e853.png

 

There are now Z values, but there are no negatives which is mildly concerning. As I'm the one that created the program, I can say with certainty that none of the operations should be drilling lower than Z-1.2.

 

Also, I was looking at the Report Data Source and don't see any huge differences between the way I was setting up my reports and the way that you set yours up. The XML you reference is different, though. Do I need to change it every time? How do I make sure ActiveReports looks at the latest version of the XML every time? I'm also still not understanding how you ensure the path to the information is maintained every time, as we were discussing earlier.

 

Thanks again for all your help in this!

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The secret handshake only needs to be used when you are in designer and trying to find a specific XML tag.  

You don't need to change the XML reference every time.  I only update it when I want to run the preview.

They include sample XMLs in the SST\Samples directory.  They even have the "Full" XML file that was created with the secret handshake.

 

It is interesting that your Z depths show up as positives.  Is your part set above Z zero and are you using an adjusted WCS?

If you have time, try this:

Change the depth of one of your operations so that it has a unique number.  Like: -1.2345

Run your setup sheet tool list and create a full XML file with the secret handshake.

Drop it in Chrome, and then search for that unique depth.  Note the XML tag, and then change the MIN-Z tag in your rpx file to match.

image.png.6d17def5ec21e8d54c3ce0667570bc8b.png

As you can see, there is more than one MIN-Z.  By looking for that unique number, you can quickly find the tag that you are looking for.

Without doing the secret handshake you might not see all of the different tags for MIN-Z

 

I like how you are sticking with this and trying to figure this out.  Most people get a little ways in and drop it, either because of the complexity or they just don't have the time to spend on this when spindles aren't turning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is bizarre.

 

I'm using the reports you posted yourself above. I've directed Mastercam to use these reports when spitting out the data. There are values for the "Min Z Depth" column, but they are the garbage numbers we've seen.

 

Here's where it gets weird: I put in a specific Z depth like you suggested, like -.12345, and was able to find it in the XML under Depth, Min-Z, Min-Z2, etc etc. The coordinate system the toolpath is based on is at the top of the part and the simulations reflect the negative nature of the Z moves. But the output report was still the weird, positive garbage numbers. At this point I'm completely baffled because none of what you're saying is being reflected in the behavior of my setup; it seems like everything is being linked correctly and the XML output is showing the correct numbers, but ActiveReports is still broken somewhere? I feel like there is a fundamental flaw in my understanding, something I am overlooking or hasn't been communicated yet.

 

I did a search in the XML for the weird numbers (in this case, 8.9262) and sure enough, there it was under MIN-Z. The proper value, -.25, was under MIN-Z2 and MIN-Z3. The other number (8.9312) was under still other MIN-Z values. Looking at the Z values, they're all over the place and don't make sense in the context of the Tool Plane. The max Z depth should be -.25, but they're all over the map.

1724115279_2019-02-2014_42_48-MDA0E.xml.png.cf30a95b041d46a4776569531fe9768d.png

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On 2/20/2019 at 6:56 AM, saltedfish said:

Also, I was looking at the Report Data Source and don't see any huge differences between the way I was setting up my reports and the way that you set yours up. The XML you reference is different, though. Do I need to change it every time? How do I make sure ActiveReports looks at the latest version of the XML every time? I'm also still not understanding how you ensure the path to the information is maintained every time, as we were discussing earlier.

I just took your setup sheets and tried to modify them to output the MIN-Z that you were looking for.  (and failed)

 

It took a while for me to get back to this thread.  I have been juggling too many chainsaws this week.

 

I have attached an Operation and Tool List report that will work with Mill, Lathe, and Mill/Turn.  Also included in the zip file is an installation and configuration doc, a sample Mastercam part file, and a sample report.

 

The hierarchy is very important.  For this report, I used the following hierarchy

OP and Tool List (MT) short.rpx

          - OP and Tool List (FILE) Short.rpx

                   - OP and Tool List (OPERATION) Short.rpx

                             - OP and Tool List (OPERATION-L) Short.rpx

                             - OP and Tool List (OPERATION-M) Short.rpx

                             - OP and Tool List (OPERATION-T) Short.rpx

                                      - OP and Tool List (MAN-ENT-INFO) Short.rpx

 and I am outputting sub-reports that don't produce any output, but are critical to gathering the correct data.

 

I added the MIN-Z that you were looking for and I also added the "Top of Stock" data.  In some cases the MIN-Z is not below Z zero.  A little quick math subtracting the MIN-Z from the top of stock will give the tool stickout that is your ultimate goal.

AR is supposed to be able to do calculated fields, but I have not been successful in getting that to work.

The sample report below is from a Lathe part with milling.

image.thumb.png.9f2726d6cd39d7461ffe07094ab9d172.png

Active_Reports_OP_Tool_List_short.zip

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I apologize for the delay in response; you know how it goes in shops: you come in one morning and you're up to your eyeballs in work.

 

At any rate, I did have an "a-ha" moment when I read your response: this whole time when you were explaining the hierarchy of reports, I didn't make the connection that you were referring to the report files themselves. I thought you were making an abstract tree of reports, and only just now realized that you were referring to the individual .rpx files and how they call on one another. That is, in your example above, your "OP and Tool list (OPERATION) Short.rpx" would have fields in it referring to "OP and Tool list (OPERATION-L) Short.rpx," "OP and Tool list (OPERATION-M) Short.rpx," and "OP and Tool list (OPERATION-T) Short.rpx." And that last one has a field referencing "OP and Tool list (MAN-ENT-INFO) Short.rpx." In other words, to make the report you're referencing above, you'd have to make a total of 7 separate files that are all linked as you describe above.

 

I'm not sure if this makes me more or less confused, though. What this is telling me is that when I use the report generator inside of MasterCam, I invoke one of the final reports, such as OP and Tool list (MT) Short.rpx, and depending on the machine selected, MasterCam knows to travel down the chain until it gets to OP and Tool list (OPERATION-M) Short.rpx (in the case of a mill) and use that as it's template? I'm still baffled why ActviveReports was designed in such a way that empty reports are necessary, but I think I understand what's going on. Now my question becomes: "How does MasterCam know which report to use? Is it based on settings in the program that it knows to use the lathe template instead of the mill one, and vice versa?"

 

Regarding your example, unfortunately my version of MasterCam is too old to open it. However, I did take a program I am currently working on and right click + "Setup Sheet" + F2 + op tool list (mt) short + ctrl+click yes + no + no + yes. The result is below:

 

477171128_2019-02-2809_18_21-ActiveReportsViewer-3-AXISVMC.thumb.png.e4df15fe2e16aeda9ee51b6795d8f21d.png

 

As you can see, the list is still not populating properly. The tools are all there, which is good, but not a real improvement on what I was doing before. To be clear, the program uses one coordinate (which was generated from geometry I drew) and is the Z zero for all the tools. All the tools generate properly according to MasterCam, so I don't think there is something funky going on there.

 

I've explained the process I went through in the hopes that you'll find some flaw or mistake that will help towards a solution. As always, thank you again and again for your patience and help.

 

PS: Part of me wonders if there's some sort of permission error at play here. I am not the system admin and recently The ActiveReports Viewer refuses to print from inside the program. I have to save my setup sheet as a PDF to my desktop, open that, then print from there. I feel like something fishy is going on here with MasterCam in general. Maybe I need to get IT to uninstall it and reinstall it.

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22 hours ago, saltedfish said:

PS: Part of me wonders if there's some sort of permission error at play here. I am not the system admin and recently The ActiveReports Viewer refuses to print from inside the program. I have to save my setup sheet as a PDF to my desktop, open that, then print from there. I feel like something fishy is going on here with MasterCam in general. Maybe I need to get IT to uninstall it and reinstall it.

Ask for Admin Rights for Just the Mcam folder in C:\Program Files and through the Shortcut on the screen. I have done this for years and it has helped many customers use Mastercam better.

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On 2/28/2019 at 9:23 AM, saltedfish said:

I'm not sure if this makes me more or less confused, though. What this is telling me is that when I use the report generator inside of MasterCam, I invoke one of the final reports, such as OP and Tool list (MT) Short.rpx, and depending on the machine selected, MasterCam knows to travel down the chain until it gets to OP and Tool list (OPERATION-M) Short.rpx (in the case of a mill) and use that as it's template?

The report that I developed was based upon one of the default reports included by Mastercam.  This was for a Mill/Turn type machine.  The reason that I chose that for my starting point was: so that I would only have one report to tweak as I found that I wanted to change something.  If I had worked just with the Mill report and then the Lathe report, I would have to go back and make changes so that the output would look the same.  I wanted to minimize the number of reports that I have to maintain.  So back to your question: "how does it know?"  It really doesn't. 

There are two things that happen when you create a Setup sheet in Mastercam.

   1.   Mastercam goes out and looks at the Active Reports rpx files, makes a list of what information is needed for the rpx files and then goes to the mcam file and extracts and saves the data that the rpx files needs to an XML file.

  2.   Active Reports ( a separate program that Mastercam has licensed ) then takes over and goes into the XML file and gathers the information for the report and creates a buffer or temporary data file.  Active reports then massages that data and places it in the report according to your template

If you go back and look at one of the XML files in the Chrome browser and start at the top, you will see that is where the hierarchy starts.  The first part of the XML file contains the data for the "SETUP SHEET".  This data only appears once.

<SETUPSHEET>
<COMPANY>My company name</COMPANY>
<USER>Windows User</USER>
<BUILD>21.0.23937.0</BUILD>
<SIM>xxxxx</SIM>
<SOURCE>MASTERCAM</SOURCE>
<UNITS>Inch</UNITS>
<VERSION>2017</VERSION>
<DATE-LONG>Tuesday, February 26, 2019</DATE-LONG>
<DATE-SHORT>2/26/2019</DATE-SHORT>
<TIME>8:21 PM</TIME>
<YEAR>2019</YEAR>  (there was more. This was just the start of that section)
 
The next data is the Safety Zone (or Stock information)  It also only appears once.  When Mastercam is looking at the MCAM file there will only be information for the SZ section based upon what product was being used.  Mill,. Lathe, or Mill/Turn.  It gathers that information (if you have requested it for your report with the rpx file) and stores it in a buffer.
 
Next is the NCFILE section.  It has information about the names of the files used and some other stuff.  This data is only gathered and output to the XML file once.
 
The next section is the OPERATION section and it is very short but does repeat in the XML file for each Operation.  It only holds the operation number and the operation type.
<OPERATION>
<SPACER>SJV</SPACER>
<NAME>1 - Contour (2D)</NAME>
 
The next section is information about the Operation and it is specific to the product being used.  It might be OPERATION-M, or OPERATION-L or OPERATION-T (for text, Manual entry) 
A sub section of this product specific operation is going to be the TOOL, and then TOOL-L or TOOL-M information and it has to be specific because of the way that Mastercam defines tools for Milling is different than the way it defines tools for Turning.  If it is a turning tool, then there are more sections for INSERT, HOLDER, CUSTOM, DRILL.  I am not using that data for my "SHORT" report.  By carefully  and consistently naming the tools, I can just use the name field in my report and still give the operator all of the information that he needs to know that he has the correct tool.
 
Again, this information is stored the the buffer.  Think about all of the information that is required to fully describe everything about an operation.  Each operation has to be defined as to what it does, what tool is used, what Work offset is used, etc.
 
After building this "buffer", Active Reports builds and outputs the report to the screen.
 
Most people have little idea of how much work it took to gather that information and put it in an XML file.  I didn't even touch on Mastercam loading the backplot image and geometry and taking a snapshot for every operation, or taking snapshots or each tool, each insert in Lathe and the touchoff point
image.png.e4f2cdfb950092c1211334b8c9a9326e.png 
 
 
Mastercam sequentially gathers the information for each operation and then Active Reports collects that information and presents it in a report.  
 
So, if you create a report that you want to output a tool depth, but don't have an OPERATION rpx before the TOOL rpx how would Active Reports know which tool depth to use for the report?
 
From the Active reports Tips and Tricks doc:

MIN and MAX Values

 

Beginning in 2019, each min/max is relative to the Tplane or WCS used in the operation. World coordinates are available. There are different tags for each. Examples: MIN-Z-TPLANE, MIN-Z-WCS, MIN-Z-WORLD.

In previous versions, the WCS must be the same in all operations selected or World values are used for MIN/MAX-Z, etc. Values will be relative to the WCS origin.

 
 
If you aren't using 2019, my reports will probably not give you accurate stickout information.
 
Most of the time, when Active reports is missing information because we have the XML tag names wrong or the path in the XML file not specified correctly, Active reports doesn't output any data.  (as you have seen in your tests)
 
What version of Mastercam are you using?
 
 
 
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On 3/1/2019 at 11:18 PM, Bill Craven said:

The report that I developed was based upon one of the default reports included by Mastercam.  This was for a Mill/Turn type machine.  The reason that I chose that for my starting point was: so that I would only have one report to tweak as I found that I wanted to change something.  If I had worked just with the Mill report and then the Lathe report, I would have to go back and make changes so that the output would look the same.  I wanted to minimize the number of reports that I have to maintain.  So back to your question: "how does it know?"  It really doesn't. 

There are two things that happen when you create a Setup sheet in Mastercam.

   1.   Mastercam goes out and looks at the Active Reports rpx files, makes a list of what information is needed for the rpx files and then goes to the mcam file and extracts and saves the data that the rpx files needs to an XML file.

  2.   Active Reports ( a separate program that Mastercam has licensed ) then takes over and goes into the XML file and gathers the information for the report and creates a buffer or temporary data file.  Active reports then massages that data and places it in the report according to your template

If you go back and look at one of the XML files in the Chrome browser and start at the top, you will see that is where the hierarchy starts.  The first part of the XML file contains the data for the "SETUP SHEET".  This data only appears once.

<SETUPSHEET>
<COMPANY>My company name</COMPANY>
<USER>Windows User</USER>
<BUILD>21.0.23937.0</BUILD>
<SIM>xxxxx</SIM>
<SOURCE>MASTERCAM</SOURCE>
<UNITS>Inch</UNITS>
<VERSION>2017</VERSION>
<DATE-LONG>Tuesday, February 26, 2019</DATE-LONG>
<DATE-SHORT>2/26/2019</DATE-SHORT>
<TIME>8:21 PM</TIME>
<YEAR>2019</YEAR>  (there was more. This was just the start of that section)
 
The next data is the Safety Zone (or Stock information)  It also only appears once.  When Mastercam is looking at the MCAM file there will only be information for the SZ section based upon what product was being used.  Mill,. Lathe, or Mill/Turn.  It gathers that information (if you have requested it for your report with the rpx file) and stores it in a buffer.
 
Next is the NCFILE section.  It has information about the names of the files used and some other stuff.  This data is only gathered and output to the XML file once.
 
The next section is the OPERATION section and it is very short but does repeat in the XML file for each Operation.  It only holds the operation number and the operation type.
<OPERATION>
<SPACER>SJV</SPACER>
<NAME>1 - Contour (2D)</NAME>
 
The next section is information about the Operation and it is specific to the product being used.  It might be OPERATION-M, or OPERATION-L or OPERATION-T (for text, Manual entry) 
A sub section of this product specific operation is going to be the TOOL, and then TOOL-L or TOOL-M information and it has to be specific because of the way that Mastercam defines tools for Milling is different than the way it defines tools for Turning.  If it is a turning tool, then there are more sections for INSERT, HOLDER, CUSTOM, DRILL.  I am not using that data for my "SHORT" report.  By carefully  and consistently naming the tools, I can just use the name field in my report and still give the operator all of the information that he needs to know that he has the correct tool.
 
Again, this information is stored the the buffer.  Think about all of the information that is required to fully describe everything about an operation.  Each operation has to be defined as to what it does, what tool is used, what Work offset is used, etc.
 
After building this "buffer", Active Reports builds and outputs the report to the screen.
 
Most people have little idea of how much work it took to gather that information and put it in an XML file.  I didn't even touch on Mastercam loading the backplot image and geometry and taking a snapshot for every operation, or taking snapshots or each tool, each insert in Lathe and the touchoff point
image.png.e4f2cdfb950092c1211334b8c9a9326e.png 
 
 
Mastercam sequentially gathers the information for each operation and then Active Reports collects that information and presents it in a report.  
 
So, if you create a report that you want to output a tool depth, but don't have an OPERATION rpx before the TOOL rpx how would Active Reports know which tool depth to use for the report?
 
From the Active reports Tips and Tricks doc:

MIN and MAX Values

 

Beginning in 2019, each min/max is relative to the Tplane or WCS used in the operation. World coordinates are available. There are different tags for each. Examples: MIN-Z-TPLANE, MIN-Z-WCS, MIN-Z-WORLD.

In previous versions, the WCS must be the same in all operations selected or World values are used for MIN/MAX-Z, etc. Values will be relative to the WCS origin.

 
 
If you aren't using 2019, my reports will probably not give you accurate stickout information.
 
Most of the time, when Active reports is missing information because we have the XML tag names wrong or the path in the XML file not specified correctly, Active reports doesn't output any data.  (as you have seen in your tests)
 
What version of Mastercam are you using?
 
 
 

Probably should have mentioned this at the very beginning: MasterCAM 2017.

On 3/1/2019 at 4:00 PM, 5th Axis CGI said:

Here:

image.png.e7dadaa0bfec8657c650d925cc10fe90.png

Super thank you!

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
On 2019/2/15 at AM3点59分, Bill Craven said:

费先生,

Mastercam.com上的“Mastercam知识库”中有一个Word文档,名为Active Reports Setup Sheets Tips and Tricks

它中有很多非常有价值的信息。

你的一些假设是正确的。  

Mastercam查看.rpx模板,仅收集您为xml文件请求的信息。有一种方法可以让Mastercam使用“The Secret Handshake”输出xml文件中所有字段的完整列表。Word文档中包含了这些说明。

如果输出完整的xml文件,则可以看到您不知道的字段。例如,有更多的最小值/最大值,而不是您在帖子中列出的值。

image.png.5b62116ad3739473b810ec9479b4febb.png

 

从提示和技巧doc:

节点层次结构

 这可能是最重要的规则。即使您不使用节点中的任何数据,也请创建使用该节点的子报表并调用下一个节点级别的子报表不遵循节点时的典型问题:

·重复数据。

·数据有限。

·数据丢失。

·图像捕获在没有使用时发生。

例如,如果不使用NCFILE,OPERATION和TOOLS节点中的数据,请使用具有Recordset模式中指定的节点的子报表。

正确:不正确:

// SETUPSHEET // SETUPSHEET

            // NCFILE //工具

                        //操作

                                    //工具

                        // TOOLS

                                    //工具

Mastercam还会查看rpx文件的名称,并收集和解析特定产品(如Mill或Lathe)的信息。您将在树列表中看到不同的产品。例如:Operation-L或Operation-T(用于文本,手动输入)。

 

我成功输出了最小值/最大值。  

image.png.42caaf30102533bb231aff5bf8941eb5.png

 

 

这么多要学习......我是一个新手。

 

How to get the three views on the right?

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I run a simulation in Mastercam using MachSim.  MachSim allows me to set up the 3 view display.  For each operation I use a screen capture program called Snagit to capture the 3 views and then I save the screen captures with names that have the operation numbers in them.

Then when I run the Active Reports setup sheet, I can change out the default screen captures that Mastercam creates for the setup sheets and replace them with the screen captures that I saved when running MachSim.

 

Attached is a Word doc from Mastercam explaining how to change the screen captures.

 

 

 

 

image.png

image.png

image.png

how to use custom images in ActiveReports.docx

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  • 2 months later...

Thanks for everything guys, I learned a lot through the Webinar video and on the forums about creating the setup sheets. I finished my setup sheets and they are working great thus far. However now one of my fellow programmers would like the tool list creation to be better. I see that both the operation manager tool list and simple tool list in the tool manager are different, and I have edited them how we like -- but one problem. The min and max z do not work within these tool lists.. as far as I can tell they don't work in anything in the MSC folder. I thought maybe just putting them into SST would work but it gives me wrong format when I set it in config. But thanks to this post I have  greater understanding.. it is not working due to it not being an operation. It is like a partial operation in the MSC folder? I there any work around for this? 

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On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 1:03 AM, jwvt88 said:

Thanks for everything guys, I learned a lot through the Webinar video and on the forums about creating the setup sheets. I finished my setup sheets and they are working great thus far. However now one of my fellow programmers would like the tool list creation to be better. I see that both the operation manager tool list and simple tool list in the tool manager are different, and I have edited them how we like -- but one problem. The min and max z do not work within these tool lists.. as far as I can tell they don't work in anything in the MSC folder. I thought maybe just putting them into SST would work but it gives me wrong format when I set it in config. But thanks to this post I have  greater understanding.. it is not working due to it not being an operation. It is like a partial operation in the MSC folder? I there any work around for this?  

Dear Jwvt88, we face a same problem, especially when I try to migrate from MCam2017 to MCam2018 with a duplicate SST from my 2017.

And I'm here in order to find this solution also.

As far I know, the "summon-world" of max tool depth (from all operation) were change from 'NCFILE/MIN-Z2' in 2017 to 'NCFILE/MIN-Z-TPLANE-O' in 2018.

But, there is some problem where 'MIN-Z-TPLANE-O' show NA when I try to generate a setup sheet in MCam18.

In my opinion, MCam17 is better than MCam18 in generate a setup sheet as you n see in attached file below. We have max depth output, but show NA in 2018.

Oh,, also please don't hesitate to ask me for the SST if you wants too. Thx be4.  

0KH704_b_BottomMachining.pdf

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  • 1 month later...
7 minutes ago, eltklas said:

Hi to everyone. I want to know if is posible do that but in the post file. I want it in my NC file, in each operation the Z max and Min values. Thanks and sorry for my english.

Check out the free MPMaster post available on this site..it has this ability built into it

HTH

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