Thanks everyone, It's good to get such positive feedback. In The last 24 hours I have had 2 inquiries for maps, I am anxious to get started on a new project I will post the new pieces when something is cut. Chris, The wood is solid Beechwood. The file was a DXF but it was not a typical topographic map, I tried to use that first, but it looked terrible and the surfaces were full of holes.

Toy- took 2 1/2 hours Billy- I won't divulge source, sorry. Lee- I could definetely work something out with you, for the MCX file. please send me a e-mail [email protected]

Yep, the yellow dots are highways and red lines as well. This was done with about 2 years of R&D trying to find someone who could provide me with a working cad model that was openable and useable. This particular piece is 22 x 55 inches. when I got the cad files from my supplier tey came in full scale. And then I had to scale them down over 4,600,000 times. Then convert to surfaces and simply fin. parallell the whole thing. I am starting a company that offers these maps of anywhere in the continental United States. All I need is two GPS corners. Also lakes that are large enough can have the Bathymetric Data included ( underwater terrain). That was my original idea, to make fishing maps. Anyhow I am almost ready to go Live with my Website I will repost when it is up. By the way I had well over 100 hours modeling this in Mastercam.Solid works crashed every time I tried to open one of the 16 files provided to me (140meg each)

Here is a table I have been working on for some time. It was made with MCX m3 not Art. The topography is true to life, derived from USGS Seamless Data. The elevation is accurate to within 5 ft. This table is of the Fox River Waterway in Illinois. Shown are all: Lakes,ponds, rivers, streams, highways, and roads.

Here is a table I made of the Fox River in Illinois. It shows all roads rivers streams highwasy, lakes and ponds.

so then how do I get it out of photo bucket to the forum?

How do I put a picture in a new topic? On this forum

Settings configure screen use free mode in dynamic spin this is the ticket you are looknig for.

settings- configure- screen use free mode in dynamic spin and middle mouse btoon area on thism page as well. One combo of these two areas is what you are looking for.

are you using the same tool for two consecutive ops? Also in your machine def. -control def. area under the linear topic make sure you have al the retract areas set to the middle option. Or what will happen is the three axis move all at once. It may be ok for years until you get to a tight lead out or a small pocket area. I typically set them to retract in Z first then XY on retracts. XY then Z for approaches.

Chris, Referring back to your original post. It does not allow me to go back and forth. I start from the beginning, single block through and then when I press edit it says on the command line to wait or reset. I cannot get it to allow me to scroll through to the desired area.

Is there a way without using the restart mode. I use dto do this years ago on a slightly different control. Like a Haas VF9. We would single block through, then get out and scroll to our desired star point and then jump back into memory and start from there. I probably will not get clearance to change the actual settings, I have no clout over hear. That is why I am looking to do it old school like.

WHat is the method to do so? Yes, that was my question.

I know it is possilbe to single block through a program and load all the codes at the beginning of the program, then go into edit or (?) and pick up and start the program in a later spot sya for instance if you had to putn in a new tool. Any help would be appreciated.

We still cannot verify internal boring tools correctly, everything comes out rectangular even if you specify round. CNC told me recently they are working on it.

Can anyone figure out a way to copy, say a circle to 5 levels at once?

Hey Rick are you sure you want to be touting thst liscense plate. If that A is not a long I it sounds a little funny if you know what I'm saying.

bump

John, Have you got this to work before. The mesh to solid that is? It seems to just be locking up on me. Or does it just take a great deal of time to produce the solid model?

thanks john, i will try this out.

When i cut a surface part with a tapered ball tool and verify it I save the verify as an stl. What I need is to create a useful solid or surface model from this stl file. Any ideas?

The curves are generated by saving the toolpath geometry when using a surface contour toolpath with depth cuts set to abs. and (0 min & 0 max) depths. I then tel the tool to have a 5 degree draft and .0005 tip diameter. Thia gives me the tangent geometry if I were to cut the part with a 5 degree endnill. So the curves are already broken into maybe 100 pieces and there isn't a drastic arc curve or sharp corner area anywhere. What I was trying to do was Create a solid larger than the profle and then do a sweep cut solid.Using the geo from the toolpath as a swept path. After creating geometry that represents the 5 degree draft endmill.

Does anyone understand this error message. I get it when trying to sweep a solid.

I found last night that the best result is to do a create, parting line curve then draft a surface down from there. Although I tried a few models and it seems to work. Only on models that have a tangency arc rather than sharp corners and cannnot be vertical (like). When the latter occurs the Drafted surface that I creat folds over itself when placed at almost any angle. As for solids it has to have a planar chain set. I also tried to perform a ruled solid or surface and the syncing twists on any setting. Swept didn't give good results either. Thanks Eric, By the way ther is a software called sculpt CAD that does really cool stuff like this.

Does anyone know of a way to model a draped surface or solid. What I mean is that the part for instance be a convential light buld for an older car. Laying on a table for instance. It would be ideal for the model to be drafted with a fillet on all drafted edges internal and external that would match the profile of the say 5 degree tapered ball endmill. It is possible to machine the part the way I want but no way to model the part efficiently. As far as I this cannot even be done in Solidworks.