I opened up the file and i have no idea why its doing that either but whatever was causing must have been fixed in 2017 because i opened it up in 2017 and hit verify and it works just fine. if you have 2017 that would be an easy fix otherwise hopefully someone can chime in and let us know if their is a fix for this in x9

There's an easy model prep tool that does that. If you go to Model prep --> Solid Disassemble, you can then window select all solids and hit enter then set options. it can auto populate each solid body, move them, group them and sort them. Works awesome in my opinion, but only works with solids. You can also have geometry auto placed on certain levels based on its attributes. To use this you need to go into the attributes Manager (drop down under the attributes section of the Home tab), you can simply set your parameter's inside the attributes manager and force geometry to level by type, but that is more for sorting geometry to various levels, not for separating solids so I would stick with the solid disassemble option.

yea if you check the box they do wake up or brighten up so they are legible in X9. But it can be frustrating having to check 10+ boxes to find the one you need so I am glad its fixed in at least the newest version.

Thad, i was just trying to help. thats the only solution i personally have but others may have a fix for x9 that im unaware about. Here is a screen shot from X9 vs 2017 side by side on my Windows 10 machine with Nvidia Quadro K4100M gfx card ​ https://s32.postimg.org/4rqdrtcit/2016_07_08_8_49_46.png

My computer does that in X9 but does not have that issue in Mastercam2017. If you download the new version I am guessing the problem will go away for you as well.

In my opinion Parallel motion would work well in that application which would be either Surface Finish Parallel or Surface high speed Raster. I recommend the Surface High speed Raster toolpath. ​Step1 - Use either Create --> silhouette Boundary, or draw a 2d Boundary representing where you would like to keep the tool (Containment Boundary) Step2 - Pick surface high speed Raster toolpath Step3 - Pick entire model for the drive surfaces Step4 - Use a the 2d Containment boundary as well to ensure you only get tool motion in the intended area. There are many other ways to have successful results, but from first glance I think I would start there. Good luck! ​

The method mentioned by tired should work well for you, alternatively you can use the all button found in your general selection toolbar, then the screen hide command. image hosting free​ An additional method that would also work Mastercam also can use color filters when chaining your toolpaths, to use this feature; when chaining go into chaining options (looks like a "!" at the bottom of the chaining window) and once you go into chaining options there are color filters inside the chaining menu that can be utilized.

Possibly Blanked geometry. You could turn on all levels and check under, Screen --> unblank. Some functions and toolpaths will use Mastercam's Blank / Unblank automatically such as lathe misc ops, etc.

Dynamic Xform can definitely do this as others have mentioned, if you want a more simplistic tool to rotate parts from one plane to another then you can use xform - translate 3d. Typically this is easier to learn than the Dynamic Xform method but Dynamic xform can be quicker once you have a good understanding. to use transform 3d try this; setup a plane on your existing part in the orientation you would like to Manufacture the component, Select everything you want to rotate. Then simply go to xform --> translate3d --> and rotate From "the plane created" to "Top plane". if this doesn't make sense there are some youtube vids on translate 3d.

I believe they improved upon this functionality in 2017, however to enable the option to match existing dim's in 2017 you must hold down the ~ key on the keyboard then select the dim that you want to match

the pro to swept threads is they look really cool and realistic, but the con is they lead to huge heavy files. I would much rather work with cosmetic threads than realistic modeled threads just due to the way my computer performs and handles the file. I must admit though I have quite a few part files from my early days with CAD/CAM with swept threads on them because of the Coolness factor but now I like my computer to perform well with the file and not feel sluggish.

Ok I understand Terry, and yea I recognized your name and location so I thought I had spoken to you in the past for tech support issues or something. Its too bad they don't send your team to occasional training. Hopefully ill see you at our upcoming rollout for Mastercam 2017 that you should get an invited to. It'll be a free event and if you can spare the time it should be very informative and give your team a good understanding of working with 2017.

Terry, I reccomend Mastercam 2017. It is still in the beta stages but will be released somewhat soon but I would hate to see you get X9 all setup and the way you like it when there Mastercam 2017 is anticipated to be released so soon. 2017 is awesome to say the least and you will have to get used to some newer icons with 2017 but i have a feeling this interface will be here for a while so I think in the long run it would be worth learning 2017 rather than x9 since thats the interface and direction Mastercam is going. If you want to try that give your reseller a call and they can set you up with the latest beta and then once the full version comes out its easy to remove the beta and install the full.

How about worst file types? Customer: I have a .STL and an .IGS for you, which one you want? lol

Tinhman, I am not sure how often you need to probe but Mastercam does have a probing product so you can program for the probes through software instead of needing to know all the Macro info which in my opinion probing language can be quite confusing. I hope you get your answers but if you are unable to or if you plan on doing lots of probing in the future you may want to start looking at Mastercams Renishaw Productivity plus product. I know that's not an answer for your current question / problem but if this is something you will be doing often it may be worth the investment for reliable probing code generation​ and more advanced probing capabilities. ​ link-http://www.mastercam.com/en-us/Solutions/Milling-Solutions/Renishaw-Productivity

the mold+ prodrill product can bring in Catia MBD and i know Veirsurf can bring in Solidworks MBD. http://www.moldplus.com/catia.htm

Awesome thats great Tom and welcome to the forums! This is one of the best places to go for Mastercam questions and there are a ton of knowledgeable members here friendly and willing to help.

Cortez you should just get Mastercam at your current shop. Sounds like you use Solidworks so Mastercam for Solidworks would probably be a great fit.

As others have mentioned MCFSW will make that easy... Mastercams full version is still assosiative though, so is you toolpath off a solid, you should be able to use model prep move and model prep push-pull to alter the model and update paths. This wouldnt be a table obviously, but you could post code, model prep the part, Save a new file name then regen the operations and re-post. I hope that makes sense.

Groups are great to say the least. I love organization, I don't use them much on simple stuff but complex stuff can be way too confusing for me if I don't group things out with some labels. I only wish that the groups could be controlled by Viewsheets. Hopefully one day, it would be nice to be able to hit a certain viewsheet and have grops open or close based on how the Viewsheet was created.

Definitely get a Laptop, working off that tiny touch screen and tiny keyboard would be a nightmare. when looking for a laptop look for a performance graphics card like a nvidia, the system may not need to be anything extremely expensive but a low quality gfx card is not a fun situation to be in. http://www.mastercam.com/en-us/Support/System-Requirements ​

Günther, Thank you for putting the effort into these every release and releasing a free product without asking anything in return. These are great and I appreciate it!​

Not to take you off your initial question but just out of curiosity why don't you just use Mastercam for everything. to me it sounds like you model your part in Mastercam, then send it to Solidworks then ultimately send it to cimatron. Mastercam is more than capable to handle all of your CAD and CAM needs and to me it sounds like you are causing additional work and headaches when you can simply just use Mastercam for all of it.

There is a lot to look at with software purchases, one of the most important things in my opinion is the support / resources available. Mastercam has top notch support with the way its sold and supported by area, and you also have lots of online resources, like this forum or Mastercam.coms forums with lots of knowledgeable individuals available and willing to assist. Mastercam also is the most used cam software and has the most seats installed worldwide. The software has to work and it has to work well and Mastercam has the reputation that you know you can trust. I have been using Mastercam for Solidworks for quite some time and if you have run the full verison of Mastercam then you will have absolutely no trouble learning the Solidworks equivalent, go with Mastercam, you wont be disappointed. Also if you purchase the full version, which I recommend more, you will get MCFSW included. This gives you the ability to program in either environment as well as opens up additional options for future or new employees as now your employees have a choice to program in MC or MCFSW depending on which one they like more or are more familiar with. That's my $.02 on this subject and I hope its helpful

well you can use comp for 3d contours, but not if you have comp set to off. that's what I meant, if you save toolpath geo from mastercams backplot, this geo is tool center geo so that's why I mentioned off comp. Hope that makes sense, sorry for the confusion.