Thankyou Roger.

Ill try and implement this asap.

Regards,

T

I just cant wait.

Its just taking to long for the post docu CD to get here.

What i want to do is th have MC pop up a custom dialogbox where the user has to type in some custom info that is then written to the Header of the NC file.

Anyone have any tips?

Regards,

Thomas W

Hi all.

I have heard roumors about a plugin for Rhino to communicate with MC.

Anyone know more about this?

Post class?!

Didnt eve know there was classes on offer.

It has proven near impossible to even get ahold of the CD with info on writing posts here in the UK. Mainly due to James fourth reason; loss of revenue.

Anyone know of classes in the UK?

Thomas W

I had some serious problems with this card.

After a lot of fiddling around it still does not work correctly with the verification.

Stay away from it.

All the Nvidia cards are great. Geforce cards are really for gaming and more geared towards textured polygons and overlays, none of which are used in Mastercam. The Quadro based cards have better line drawing and antialiasing. it also does a better job of drawing intersecting and overlapping surfaces.

Recently got a Quadro4 64MB. Works perfectly with all my 3ed software. Including QIII

Good luck.

all comes down to graphics card really.

look for cards that really do full open gl accelleration. geforce and quadro chips are pretty reliable. wouldnt go for the Radeon though, ive had problems with it and OGL with mastercam

Back up all your stuff and reinstall the system. Do a clean install. If it still kills it self then give it back. Sounds like hardware problems to me.

since my previous struggles with getting a ati radeon to work with mc i have bought quadro cards.

i see a big differance in ogl line rendering compared to the gforce, the textured polygon rendering is more or less the same.

you cant go wrong if you get this card.

hi

abut gaming devices:

most of them have programmable buttons(all). microsofts 'strategic commander' and 'sidewinder' controls can be assigned keystrokes.

they would infact work quite well with regular software.

thomas w

hi.

my post about the redraw errors on an ati radeon card sort of guides the choice.

the conclution was to stay away from any machine with a graphicscard that doesnt fully support open gl.

there are laptops with pro ogl graphics like the quadro. think dell has one.

all the geforce family cards seem to do an exelent job with mastercam and other cad software i have used. not so with some highend animation softwares, but thats a different story.

i think you can safely go for any major brand machine with a geforce card.

thomas w

hahaha!

told the guys at ironcad once that i wanted controls like in quake for my cam orientation.

-always run

-fov 90

-strafe

-mouse look

-swich weapon(tools) on the mouse wheel.

they sort of stared at me blankly for about two seconds and went on to talk about autocad import.

too bad i was serious.

thomas w

u have to allocate more ram for the app to operate in.

do this in the screen->configure menu.

the default settings are pretty low for modern machines.

thomas w

ten, 10

there are a lot of improvements i would like to se happening in terms of workflow and 3d viewports.

too many clicks needed to do certain things and the manipulation of the camera is really slow/cumbersome.

the general archaic feel of the interface is even more frustrating when you know how well mc does all the underlying and imprtant aspects of cnc programming. it really is the best when it comes to creating toolpaths, but it is way behind when you look at the interface. i just love the graphic feel to catias nc module.

also i would like to see more interactive in/out functionallity built into the software. at present all you can do is save/load/print. to be able to link certain aspects and parameters would be really nice.

im doing some experimenting with letting expernal software access the plaintext databases and files of mc to see what can be done. tools, etc

the external linkin would help prevent errors with programmers working on incorrect outdated parts and it would also allow the entire production cain to take bigger part in the machining.

we do furniture and architectural work, and for us this makes a lot of sense since the material variations drives some of the design.

yeah, ten.

so much to wish for.

-add more i/o and database capabilities

-insert mc as an integrated module into several of the cad systems exsisting.

-make the mc server completely independent of the client(dont know if it even is a client/server setup). that way we could make our own interfaces to suit our needs/workingstyle/industry.

more than anything i want a complete product lifecycle managemant system based on a descriptive product data language.

catia is great but it is to restraining to productivly model in and the nachining isnt up to par with mc. its also really expensive.

enough of my rambling,

thomas w

even better would be if you could port it out to an extertnal linked database. then it would really start making sense and have a meaning to more people. the shop guy, the planners, the designers...

i seem to be the only person in the whole world who likes to view my parts in perspective rendering. important to us cos the verification drives the design in some instances.

thomas w

thanks doug.

found out multicam are leaning more towards alphacam and are a bit reluctant to support.

ill talk to andy to get the post sorted.

thomas w

hey guys.

-querry the ftp for details on modes and commands.

-always better to use a good client then ie; flash-fxp, ws-ftp, cuteftp...

-check with your network admin or isp if they have any port or traffic restrictions (firewalls, etc.)

-the host likely has a max number of users and a max limit to traffic. this is a likely reason for being denied.

-if all else it might be down. email the admin.

thomas w

ok guys, lets kill this topic afore it gets all bloated

geforce 4 ppl: please post if you run into troubble!

tw

yeah. i know this stuff and it works well to force the AA for both catia and ironcad.

the initial post was about ati radeon 7500 thou, which doesnt seem to do a very good job of the ogl api calls from MC.

the quadro seems to be the better choice.

thomas w

hey,

thanks james.

i downloaded metacut pro a while ago and i havent really had time to check it out. it does look really nice thou.

now ill definitly give it a go.

thomas w

hi.

have been reading up bit on our multicam machine. seems it supports splinebased interpolation nc code. what fun!

anyone know if it is possible to output splinebased toolpaths from MC?

guess it could be done with a custom post but that would take a lot of coding.

the geforce cards are great except fot that they are mainly texel/mapped polygon/culling accellerators. the 4ti does some really good antialiasing. the fail a bit when it comes to wireframe and antialiased lines.

you notice this if you swich from texturemapped mode to wireframe and move the camera around. wireframe is a lot slower.

quadro has added support for wireframe.

thomas w

yeah,

this is so true.

coming from a hacker background i have a tendency to always dig as deep as possible and try to find out as much as possible on a given subject.

im always pushing the envelope as far as i can.

having applied this to cnc and cam im really surprised by the arcane way shops relate to their software/hardware.

conservative to say the least.

what i find the most striking is how these machines become automated replicators, instead of creative production tools because of the conservative and cumbersome attitude towards using them.

like working against not with?

i welcome a descriptiv approach rater than direct approach to machining. it would drasticly decrease the price of one-of and variable products.

ltr,

thomas w

hi.

that is really too bad if what you say is the truth. think of what postscript did to the publishing buissness in the late eighties.

i just hope the productivity increase will surpass the conservatism of shops.

thomas w

hello again

nvidia do make some really exellent drivers. my programmer friends in the games industry keep telling me that they are really impressive work in general.

my home machine has a geforce card and i have never had any problems with it with either MC or Ironcad. Softimage has given me some crashes sometimes but then soft is pretty picky in the ogl implementation.

judgeing from all the replies the verdict must be: stay away from ati for pro work.

thankyou,

thomas w

yeah,

i have come to the same conclusion.

really too bad cos they are exellent machines.

thomas