Good to know. Sometime when I'm stuck on the couch I'll whip something up

You're welcome, Nils... I was thinking I should do a "customizing Mastercam for more productivity" style video, and talk about/show all those little options that no one ever uses.. Do you think something like that would be useful?

Protip: Right click in your icon area and choose "customize." From the pull-down list in the middle, choose "shade," then look near the end of the displayed icons. There will be one called "toggle translucency," click and drag that up to your icon bar, then hit the green ok button. Now you can quickly and easily toggle it without going into a menu...

And if you don't feel like making a surface, you should be able to do the same with the WireFrame : Lofted toolpath, but you'd have to draw your own lead-in/lead-outs... Just make the bottom shape and then the top shape, and select them in that order. Personally, I'd make a surface

Ah, right, I remember seeing that thread.. Hmm..

Rotary Ninja - did you happen to grab a screen capture video of it happening to send in to your reseller? That may help debug it if they can't recreate it on their end..

The real question is what changed from the 28th? Is that the first time the computer was rebooted? Were any of the support files (config/machine def/post/etc) located on the network?

Thoob - Are you running any sort of antivirus software that could be interfering with read/writes? If so, try disabling that?

I'll stay out of a debate between the two (for obvious reasons) because they're both great, but I will say that your "I need to start getting more advanced training. got plently of basic knowledge" quote is probably misguided. No offense I had been teaching multiaxis machining w/ Mastercam for about 7 years when I got access to MastercamU. I fired up the account, looked at the available courses and said, "Pffft, I've been teaching this stuff for years, I can skip the basics.." But I decided to start at the beginning anyway. Within 5 minutes, I was sitting there with my mouth hanging open saying "Holy crap! I never knew you could do THAT with..." Seriously, the tricks I picked up that the software can do saved me untold hours of productivity, and made me a much more complete user. I was kinda mad at how many hours of life I wasted doing some things the inefficient way. My point is, if you can swing it, start at the beginning. As much as it pains me to say it, structured training is always more valuable (for the time spent) than the random, shotgun, "figure out this problem when you come across it" approach. And you especially get a lot more out of structured classes when you've already made yourself a good baseline of knowledge, because you'll pick up all the little tricks the teacher is doing, all of those little efficiency things that a rookie would overlook.

Robert, I don't know anything about a Chook to do that, but there are path settings under Settings > Configuration and then choose Files. Hope this helps!

The problem is that the toolpath you're using doesn't support any more than 1 processor at a time... The only fix is to wait for someone to change the software to use more than that.. Oh, wait, what was it that Chris said above?

There's been a lot of discussion about this, but I think it's one of the things that's most confusing for a lot of people. Help says "When this option is selected, Mastercam calculates the compensated tool positions just as if Computer was selected, but also outputs the G41/G42 codes. This lets the operator adjust for tool wear at the control. Enter the difference between the selected tool size and the reground tool size at the control as a negative number." Basically, if you have a tool diameter entered in Mastercam (Say, a 1.000" diameter), Whatever you're trying to cut will still be offset by .500" (the radius), but in the control you're supposed to have a tool diameter of 0. If you adjust that tool size + or -, your control will now compensate for wear of the tool. If you compensate by entering, say, -.002 (meaning, the diameter is actually .002" smaller than .500"), The control will adjust the line to .502". The idea is that the operator can quickly measure the part, say it was wrong by X, and only enter X as the compensation amount and the control doesn't have to do crazy tool comp calculations, it only has to adjust the toolpath by (generally) a few thou at most. There have been a lot of problems over the years caused by a control having to do a huge cutter comp in a very short amount of time, or the control choosing the wrong side, etc. Wear makes it way easier for everyone involved.

I like to change the lower-right light to dark grey (#8) grey instead of a white, and crank up the intensity to about 80 or 90 to compensate for it not throwing as much light. That doesn't affect the colors of the solids or surfaces, and, like Matthew was doing, always makes sure you can see depth.

Excellent!

I can't remember, but does X5 have a log program? I think it was introduced in X5, but I don't have X5 installed right now so I can't check. If so, check down in your start menu in the dock (by the clock) and see if it's running. If it's not, browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\mcamx5 and start the file MCLogr.exe, and THEN start X5. See what if it says anything worthwhile...

Woah, watch out here... The mcamx6.config file contains a few hard coded paths (for example, User Data Folder points to C:\Users\XXX\Documents\my mcamx6\), which are written the first time you start mastercam when logged into that computer. Just be aware that you may need to edit it for each user after they log in and change that path (XXX in my example above).

Drafting3 - You really need to check out Verisurf if you want to import and edit point clouds nicely, as Kevin mentioned. James - What does the output from the Zeiss look like? Mastercam wants to import ASCII text files, formatted like this: 3.2332 1.234 8.6544 4.2332 1.234 8.6544 5.2332 1.234 8.6544 6.2332 1.234 8.6544 It's just X Y Z positions, repeated for each point. Then you can import it as points, lines (just straight lines drawn between the points, really), or, my personal favorite depending on the application, Splines. If you bring it in as splines, it will recognize breaks as the end of a spline/beginning of a new one. If your editor/converter allows it to, have it copy the first point to the end of the group, and Mastercam will close the spline for you, like so: 3.2332 1.234 8.6544 4.2332 1.234 8.6544 5.2332 1.234 8.6544 6.2332 1.234 8.6544 3.2332 1.234 8.6544 3.2332 1.234 7.6544 4.2332 1.234 7.6544 5.2332 1.234 7.6544 6.2332 1.234 7.6544 3.2332 1.234 7.6544 Or use Verisurf Hope this helps!

Rick - Maybe try resetting the dialog positions using the control panel applet (Start > Control Panel > Mastercam X > Reset > Reset Dialog Positions) to see if the screen just isn't appearing in your viewing area?

...

I'm with these guys, that seems horrible. I group by setup/fixture, then operation. Who cares what tools are used when? I'm trying to do make the part in the most productive manner, who cares what order the tools are in? Setup 1 > 1st Task > 2nd Task > 3rd Task Setup 2 > 4th Task > 5th...

If those three guys can't do it, it's probably not doable

At some point, X3 or X4(?), they made it so the level manager applied instantly. So on my X6 system you can toggle things on and off and see the results instantly on the screen. They don't enforce line weight or colors because there's a lot more flexibility that way. It sounds like you're used to Autocad, which is fine for what it is, but it would be frustrating for those of us who use different attributes (colors/lineweights/styles/etc) to differentiate different ops in the same level. Use the Select Only or Select All (the ALL/ONLY buttons in the middle of the second ribbon bar) to select things by attributes. "From what I've read it seems that MasterCam doesn't evoluate over the years." MasterCAM is always evolving, anyone who told you otherwise isn't using the latest stuff. It doesn't evolve if you don't upgrade

I've never really had a problem with Xform project, unless the surface is ridiculously ugly (a lot of folds/overlaps/gaps/etc) and I deal with it a lot. Most of the problems I've had with it come from views/planes. Always make sure you're drawing in the plane you want to project in. If it's not, try going to Planes > = to Gview to make a new plane.

I'm quoting you on this! I'm with Ron, I've heard of Max-PAC, but I've never gotten to play with it. I do think it's one of those "if you need to do exactly this, it can be great, but nothing else." things..

If you have a "Linear Axis Rapid Traverse Rate" clicked on in your machine def (General machine params > Axis Feed Rate limits), you may be substituting a fast G1 move instead of a Rapid move, and that feedrate may be set higher than your Toolpath Maximum Feed (on the first tab, Op. Feed Rates). If that's the case, just kick down the Rapid Traverse feedrate to something more acceptable.