@Colin Gilchrist, Thanks for your great suggestions. I hadn't thought of calculating where the entry point should be by letting the tool plunge, creating a start hole operation, then running the backplot to find the exact starting point. I'm sure that might come in handy in the future. To your point about using the Dynamic Roughing operation, this is my go to roughing strategy. Totally agree that it is a far superior toolpath for removing material efficiently. The main use case I see for the 2D Pocket operation is finishing the floor of my pocket after Dynamic Roughing. The Dynamic Roughing operation can leave slight scallops in the floor and I often like to perform a finishing operation after. I like the many pattern options the 2D Pocket operations it provides like spiral, concentric, circular, zigzag etc. for leaving an aesthetically pleasing finish on the floor of the pocket before contouring the walls. Even though I may only have 0.1-0.2mm of stock left on the floor I would still prefer to ramp down or helix down into the material rather than plunge straight into it. Most of the work I do is one-off parts and going through the exercise of plotting the the exact starting point to then create a sketch with a point to start the helix is a somewhat lengthy workflow without great benefit. I see that I can use the Area Mill to achieve a similar outcome but the machining pattern is limited to a single style rather than the multiple options provided by the 2D Pocket operation. I think adding this simple feature to the 2D Pocket operation would be a great addition to the software to improve workflow.

Can the developers of MasterCAM please add a feature to the 2D Pocket operation allow you to make the Helix or Ramp entry point to be tangent to the starting point of the pocket roughing toolpath? I understand you can define a point and use that as the starting point but this is difficult if the starting point of the roughing operation isn't directly in the center of the part. This feature is available in other operations like Area Mill and Dynamic Mill but not 2D Pocket. I believe this simple feature would make the 2D Pocket operation much more user friendly and useful. Please see attached image for reference.