superman, after using a copied plane method, i still got the same results. so i placed a call to cnc. talked to a tech who informed me that this is a known bug and will be fixed for X4 due out in the summer. thanks for your help fellas.

superman. the way you describe wcs is the way i understand it too. was the alternate plane method self taught or did you learn it from a training class? i'm going to go ahead and do it that way for a while and see what happens. what gets me is, this issue did not exist in X2. i drafted the same way in X2 and the construction plane stayed put. in X3, it is definitely moving. i opened a session with a default config file and still had the same thing happen. then i tried this out on another seat in the shop and it happened there too. so it's not something in the config or something with my install. jack neelands tried it out on his system and the construction plane didn't change. are you using supermans method jack? i'd be interested to hear how other people are using wcs as it applies to this discussion.

on it's way, Jack. Thanks.

if the dimensions are below the geometry, you won't see them when you print it off. which is part of the problem here. if i don't realize the construction depth has changed, then print, i end up with a bad print and have to do it over. i have just always used .1. no other particular reason. even if i do realize the depth has changed, i have to re-establish it before continuing and always have to be on guard for it changing. pita. i'm going to give the 3d draft a try. maybe that will solve some of this.

Superman, if i get you right, you are suggesting some kind of workaround. While i am forced to use workarounds a lot anyways, this problem has only begun for me in X3. it worked fine in X2 as i posted previously. I appreciate the suggestion and may even have to use it at some point, but i have a hard time settling for workarounds. If you have to make copies of all the planes you use, what's the point of having wcs. Sorry, i'm just frustrated with features that worked better in older versions. shouldn't they work better in newer versions?

thanks for your help, i wasn't around for a few days, so sorry for not getting back to you sooner. view manager reads as follows: C T D boxes are all selected for the FRONT PLANE as you get when you click the '=' icon. Origin Coordinates: X 0.0 Y 0.0 Z -0.6657 only box checked is 'associative'. in graphics window, 2D construction depth is set to .1000. Begin drafting. 2D construction depth says -.5657, drafting entities are located at .1000. Finish drafting, click green check mark. construction depth does not return to .1000, view manager has not changed. I restored X2 and did the same exact step by step process. In X2,when i click the green check mark to finalize and exit drafting, the construction depth returns to .1000. This is where X3 is leaving the construction depth at whatever. as i was doing this so i could describe it accurately, after the first 2 times, it didn't change again until i repeated the draft, line, draft thing a couple of times. so it is not doing the same thing every single time, but almost.

yes, c and t planes equal wcs in view manager for all files. thanks.

c'mon people now, smile on your brother...???

hello. hello. hello. is there anybody out there? just blog if you can hear me. maybe mr. waters was just having trouble with mastercam.

fyi gcode not network libraries here.

when i set the construction depth at .1000 and start dimensioning, i notice the construction depth changes to -.2983 but the drafting entites are still put at .1000 i guess this makes sense at some level because everything is obviously related to absolute zero. but when i'm done drafting the construction depth stays at the -.2983 level instead of returning to .1000. this ends up causing problems, because if i need to do additional drafting and don't re-establish the .1000 depth, the dimensions end up at -.2983 (which is absolute -6966 and now displayed as the construction depth). and if i continue again the new displayed depth will be -1.0949 and so on. i don't have any previous X versions installed to check this on, but i wasn't running into this before now. is there a drafting parameter affecting this? maybe i set something differently in MU1 somehow? my wcs origin is Z-.39829.

i've had similar problems which i posted about earlier. gcode's answer seems pretty close to me. it's like the ops manager has logic problems now that it didn't have before, and it's related to the machine manager. something else i have noticed for a few versions is sometimes when you try to select an operation, you can keep clicking on it but it won't select it until you click on something else first and then go back and select it. or when you redefine geometry in a contour path, after the chaining dialog box disappears, you are automatically unselected on that operation. my instincive move is to click regenerate as soon as the box disappears, but you get the message that no operation has been selected. so you have to go back and select the operation you were already working in. it's not a big problem, but it doesen't seem to be functioning properly.

quite right john. my mistake. so do these customers refuse to translate now because mastercam can read natives? and what is the difference that you know of? other than the history tree. just curious.

quote: Sorry but that's just plain wrong for the majority of us that read in CAD Data from other systems. If we don't stay on top of new installs, we're in BIG trouble. i don't understand this because i read cad files from both pro and solidworks too. and i can still read them in just as good in v9 as i can in x3. if your'e referring to the solidworks history tree that you can use now, that is a very nice feature. but you don't need 3 downgrades a year to keep it. my hypothetical point(and just my opinion) is, that a lot of software companies including at least some of those providers you named, would not enjoy anywhere near the same level of revenue if they shipped a clean product. even just one time. not when a huge portion of income comes from maintenance. because even though as you point out, some customers would still want to keep up with the newest v's, a lot of us probably wouldn't see the need. (just look at all the users here on this forum who go back to an old v that they feel works better.) and they know that when the customer looks for ways to cut costs, a maintenance fee for something that already works would be one of the first things to go.

not that i do, but if i paid someone to cut my lawn, and they would miss spots, then come back later to fix it, and get those spots but miss other different spots and charge me a fee to keep coming back and keep fixing the spots they missed and keep missing others... well, you probably get the idea.