Mastercam X

interesting, don't know why i cant select the same point over and over ... I do have it in an inline function, not sure if that matters?? pma

does anybody know why, when I select a point using the following select_ent call, i cant select the point multiple times? rc = select_ent( &prompt[0], (ent *)&entity, &eptr, pos, &t, ALIVE_BIT, P_ID, (int)RED, &succf ); what I want is the x, y and z values of the point the user selects. i want every point to be available multiple times. pma p.s. i did try unselecting the point doing: unsel_ent( eptr ); but that didnt work.

got it to work with p_svec, q_svec and r_svec variables. now, how do i limit the number of points to generate in the nc file? would like just to trace around the boundary of the surface, how do I specify to do this? no probelm if you dont know this one... pma

ok, I and J always comes out as 0, always comes out as 1. seems line its rounding up. how do i get 6 decimal places to pront out? when i use "Analyze Dynamic", the normal always has values in it.

yo da man, let me try it and hope it works! thanks! pma

how does one get the real values of vtoolx$, vtooly$ and vtoolz$? should these variables already be set or do i need to call some function to get the values?

ok here goes: we don't really use a machine, we have a special laser projection application. it reads a part file with the x, y and z co-ordinates. it can also interpret i, j, k values. i would like to include the i,j,k values anytime they are there. right now i was told to use a 5-axis machine type (5-AXIS TABLE - TABLE HORIZONTAL) , with surface finish toolpath (none i've selected produced the i,j,k values in the NC file). The post file I've been playing with is the Generic Fanuc 5X Mill.pst file. We are running Mastercam X. arcoutput is already set to 0 in the pst file. once the NC file is generated, we xlate it to our part file format for our application.

can you be more specific as to what pst file these are located in?

ok, now that I can access 5-axis flowline, how do I get it to generate i, j, k values in the nc file? I have q simple surface model, if i select he boundary lines, how do i get it to generate he i,j,k along with the x, y and z values? pma

disregard this request. sorry. pma

any documentation on this function (AddMillInchTool)??? any other ways to add/select a mill tool from a chook?

I guess my real question is how do I create a 3D contour toolpath? The above code always creates a 2d toolpath, don't know why?

what post gets executed if i have the following: machine: 3-axis vmc.mmd toolpath: contour it seems when i run a chook with the following code, something else gets executed. specifically, i don't get Z values inserted into the NC file. if I don't run the chook and just click G1, I get the Z values. char ncDir[18] = { "C:mcamxMillNC" }; // add a contour op op.opcode = TP_CONTOUR; op.u.prm_cntr.ctour_type = CTR_3D; operation_manager( &op, OPMGR_INIT_ADD, &eptr, &succf ); . . . select chains via chain manager . . . // post operations (create NC file) my_post_settings.save_nci_file = FALSE; my_post_settings.overwrite_nci = FALSE; my_post_settings.save_nc_file = TRUE; my_post_settings.overwrite_nc = TRUE; my_post_settings.editNCI = FALSE; my_post_settings.editNC = FALSE; my_post_settings.export_prm = FALSE; my_post_settings.wcs_1014 = FALSE; my_post_settings.descriptor = FALSE; postOps( &my_post_settings, NULL, (char *)&ncDir, FALSE, TRUE ); [ 08-07-2006, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: pma ]

unfortunately i don't have access to 5-axis stuff (no license)