Dear all members/moderators, Thank you all for your patience and technical expertise during these past four months. I have learned a lot from this forum and from my work about MasterCAM, although I think I've only scratched the surface. However, my co-op work term here is nearing an end, and thus I will not be bombarding this forum anymore with endless chook programming questions. I will be returning to Systems Design Engineering classes at the University of Waterloo, Canada in September. It's been a great pleasure to learn from you guys. Special thanks to Bullines, PDG for their technical help, and James Mayette for his encouragement and support. Sincerely, Simon

is there a way to suppress the creation of the error file upon posting?

no, it's fine if i change the axis of rotation

when I create a primitive solid sphere in front view, and then convert the solid into STL ASCII, the resulting file contains duplicate triangles, as well as "triangles" which have normal (0,0,0) and a duplicated point. However, when I create the sphere in top view, everything is fine. Any ideas why this happens? THanks! Duckman [ 08-23-2002, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Duckman ]

a variety of parts would be nice...it'd b great if my chook works on even the most complex chook, but if it doesn't work i guess i'll have to test wtih simpler ones first...size is not an issue...I'm not sure what the solid option is..but I think I have it... thanks! could you send it to [email protected] thanks!

where can i set up the minimum line length...is it the same setting as minimum arc length? is there a way to suppress the warning window when something is below this minimum?? Thanks!

Hi, I'm currently testing a chook I made, but don't have many parts to test it on. Does anyone have any solid parts I can use? Thanks!

awesome thanks!

in the CHOOK API's CHAIN structure, there are two boolean members, "closed" and "branch", which flags if a particular chain is closed, and has branches. The variable that seems to define what a "branch" and what consists of "open" seems to be nc_tol, and this sets the "chaining tolerence" in screen->configure. From my work, it seems that this tolereence is coupled to both the minimum length of an ent to be considered a branch and the "openness" of a chain (ie, the minimum distance between two endpoints to be considered that two entities are not "connected") thus, if this variable is set to a higher number, a more chains would be considered "closed", but also increases the likliehood of a branch being detected. I would like have it so that open chains are not detected, and branches are also not detected...is there a way to do this? or do I not make any sense at all? Thanks!

when i use this method, sometimes I get error message: Error converting solid face to trimmed surface Put untrimmed surface on a new level any ideas what causes a surface to be untrimmable?

ahhh...great thx cadcam!

given a solid part, is it possible to convert it to a surface? Thanks!

I just press F5 actually to go into debug... I don't get the error on startup, I only get the error when i reach a db_init() line...and if i comment out the db_init(), i get the same error when I reach a store_ent line... Thanks bullines!

I am programming a chook with MSVC++. When I debug the chook, I get an error "Unhandled exception in Mill9.exe (PSKERNEL.DLL) 0xC0000005: Access Violation" when the code reaches dbinit() or store_ent(). However, when I acutally run the dll from Mastercam, I receive no errors. Any idea what the problem could be? Thanks!

any ideas under what circumstances it won't work?

works like a charm! thanks allan!

yes...i am using the function to essentially break a spline that is very close to a complete circle...when I bbreak the spline, with chord dev of 1, the resulting arcs all have the same diameter and center point to within .000001. Conceptually, I am thinking that all these arcs should be merged into one big arc, but it doesn't seem to be happening...any ideas why? THanks!

when I use modify->break->spline to arcs, what does the geometrical quantity does the error, chordal deviation represent?

actually, that function will convert a spline to a single arc/line if it fits. I need to break any general spline into constituent arcs/lines. I've been told that the only way to do this is with exec_func(brkarcs)...I was hoping for a more automatic process, but maybe one doesn't exist...any ideas? Thanks for all help! James: My projects are going well...But deadlines are approaching quickly, and I've just started my most complicated endeavour! Thanks for encouragement!

From this can I infer that NURBS surfaces are not exact representations? If I wanted to intersect a plane with a spherical surface, and the surface is NURBS, I get a spline that approximates the circle of intersection but is not exactly cicular. If my surface was a revolved surface, would I get a circular arc of intersection? (I will experiment with this right now...) Thanks for you help! okay tried it, and I still get a spline...so I am unsure about the exactness of a REV_SURF [ 08-01-2002, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: Duckman ]

ah, i understand! thanks! but why in the API does it have NB_SURF, PP_SURF as well as REV_SURF, LOFT_SURF as surface types if the surfaces can only be NB or PP?

if i save a mastercam part as a STL ASCII file, does it take the part, section it with parallel planes, and store each section in the text file? If so, what is the structure of the ASCII file? I cnnot make heads or tails just by inspection. Thanks

has anybody used this CHOOK function? I am just trying to intersect a sphere with a horizontal plane, but am getting weird results. The sphere was created as a revolved surface about it's diameter. AFter I icall the function, it creates a spline that is approximately a quarter circle. Shouldn't the intersection be a circular arc? Thanks,

After I create a "revolved" surface, and I analyze the surface, it says that it is a NURBS surface. Why does it change to NURBS? and is there a way I can keep it as a revolved surface?

oops, i meant is there a way to do this in the CHOOK API?