It's called an accelerator and it's standard Windows behavior.

But how is it used in the context of levels?

I just noticed that putting an ampersand (&) before a character in the name of a Level underlines that character when the level is active. Is this a bug or is it useful for something? It reminds me of what happens in programming in Visual Basic when you want a character to become a hotkey with Alt for a labeled object on the interface.

(&File &Edit &View &Analyze &Create &Solids &XForm... = File Edit View Analyze Create Solids XForm...)

I just loaded a very large file (over 1200 solids) in X5 MU1, shaded it, and rotated it. When first loaded Mastercam was using about 1.3GB. After shading it went up to 1.6GB. Rotating did not affect the memory usage at all. I then turned shading off and tried rotating and I did observe a slight memory leak. I suppose it would be enough to cause problems over time but it does not seem to be nearly as large a leak as what you are seeing.

 

Are you running any third party apps with Mastercam?

Nothing besides my 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator and the latest Beta driver for it. I don't suppose that would cause such a memory leak in Mastercam.exe itself.

Edit: I tried turning off the 3DxService.exe but rotating the model with the mouse and keyboard still leaked memory.

What version of Mastercam are you using? There was a problem in X4 (I think prior to MU3) that was creating permanent views instead of temporary ones while rotating and eventually it would hit the max number of views allowed. I am not sure if that would even explain the amount of memory increase that you are seeing.

 

The other question I have is if this is only happening with a specific file or files? This sounds like a memory leak but I have not seen any memory leaks associated with just rotating a part like this. If it is file specific could you please send ne a copy of a file that is causing the problem.

I'm using X5 MU1 and it doesnt seem limited to just one file. I even ruled out the config file. Larger files just make the memory leak faster. And the memory leaks with whatever I do with the interface. Rotating the part was just the first step in my diagnostics and even that caused problems. Making actual changes to the file make the memory leak even faster.

I'm not sure what I can do with the interface to stop the problem, because now that it's here, it doesn't want to go away - as if Mastercam did something wrong and corrupted the installation.

I have been having memory issues and crashes lately, and I recently made a discovery: without making any changes to the file that I was working on, the Memory Usage (as displayed in the Task Manager) for Mastercam doubled in a few minutes. There wasn't even any Undo data to save, and I have the limit set to 10 MB. I just orbited around the model for a few minutes and watched as the memory usage climbed. I opened Mastercam and it started out using about 170,000K...I opened my file and it went up to about 215,000K...I orbited the model and the usage climbed to over 400,000K in minutes.

When I first pulled up the task manager to begin investigating the cause of insufficient memory, Mastercam was using over 1.4 million KB - over 1 gigabyte with this same model that started at 215,000K. What the heck is Mastercam doing? I've never seen this before in any other program.

I gave up and made a series of 2D contour toolpaths. The Surface Rough Toolpath doesn't let you specify the stock height, and the "depth cut" parameter only refers to how far down the surface it will increment in Z. This isn't a very effective roughing toolpath if you can't use depth cuts before reaching the surface. I'm not asking for much.

I'm working on a milling program for a vertical mill. I want to surface rough an open cavity and I want to mill down to the surface with depth cuts. But the Surface Rough Contour Toolpath doesn't allow for stock recognition and I don't know how else to get it to work. Sure, I'm milling plastic, but I don't want to go straight down to full depth. With an open cavity, how do I get it to cut from the outside in like I can with Multipasses?

I think you may like to try changing your Filter Tolerance between 0.05 to 0.1...that may start to combine all the little linear movements into arcs.

Go to the Parameters of your Contour toolpath,

go to 'Arc Filter / Tolerance',

set the Filter ratio to Custom,

and type 0.05 in the 'Filter tolerance' textbox.

Make sure "Create arcs in XY" is checked. You may want the others checked, too...

I find it strange that everyone has a different limit.

The limit changes based on the height of the window...in case you missed that.

The good news is that they found a setting that limits 3D Connexion devices.

 

The bad news is that it will be changed for X7.

 

I’m trying to see if it can get into the re-release of X6, but that is a big if. I’ll be in touch when I know more.

Oh goodie! I feel better now.

The programmer is back! Unfortunately, he doesn't have a lot to offer us. He knows of no limits for zooming with a 3D Connexion device or mouse.

Well, that kinda scares me. If the programmer cannot help, then who can?

It's a good thing this problem doesn't restrict us completely...

Ah...not screen resolution, necessarily. The limit is tied to the Height property of the Form. That's where the programmers need to look.

I know it is a problem with Mastercam, not the device.

The device has no control over spatial or motion limits of objects or views in an application.

push the fit button?

The fit button does not solve the problem. I cannot use the SpaceNavigator like usual when it is zoomed out that far. It immediately zooms in with a simple tap of the cap.

I have a large document in Mastercam that fits in a window with a zoom of about 410, but my 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator cannot zoom out beyond 112.5440. I know it is a problem with Mastercam, not the device. My mouse wheel zooms out indefinitely, but any attempts to pan, zoom, or rotate with my SpaceNavigator while outside of the upper zoom limit snaps my zoom back down.