ok so i dont what im looking at. this is code for 5 axis? is this the advantage of this type of programming? what about just 3 axis ? the vector program seems much longer but probobly much smoother on the surface.

thanks ill give it a try!

when i select a tool from the library and i want to change its number from say 312 to 1, the height and d number remain 312 and i have to manually change them. i seem to remember in ver 9 that once i changed the tool number both of these would update. do i have something set wrong?

thank you Colin!

but where would you make changes? back in mc? in the code at the machine? what if you originally had it on a 4 or 5 axis mill and now your doing it all broken up on a 3 axis mill. what is the real advantage of this if now we design in pro e and then bring it into mc? does it just save one step because its noe imbedded in the model file? it seems to me its reading something along the lines of the mc NCI file and will output code for any machine you want just like im doing now by just selecting a different post processor.

this is right off of one of the step nc sites. mastercam must have been involved in this at some point even though this appears to be pre ver 10."Save As AP-238" for MasterCAM

perhaps you are referring to polygon turning which is completely different.

yes i read that. it was back from 2006. i would think it would be much more advanced now if it were something worth pursuing.

do any of you have any input on this? my company is currently looking hard into it but im still confused as to what it exactly is. is programming still done in mc? it states that it eliminates g and m codes . how. is there a controller that goes betwwen the machine and the programming computer. this all sounds good from a "non" machinist point of veiw . anyone have experience with it?

local subs can be inside the main program just stacked up under the m30.they are called with an m97 instead of an m98 and they start with an "n" like n1000 ,n2000 etc. i like this much better because it can all be loaded in as 1 program and you dont have to worry about anyone editing a sub that you are not actually in because you are in the main. hope this makes sense.

im making new badges for my jeep and i have them just about modeled but im having a hard time getting the "S" to look like the one in this pic.the raster to vector scan came out pretty bad and i would like it to come out very nice maybe with just arcs if possible. any help is greatly appreciated.

i have adobe here now but im getting better results with the mc rast to vect converter. everything is coming out nice and crisp. they just dont come out well when i use the new spline function.

thank you that was a very good explanation!

could an obj. file be brought into mc?

these seem to be objects. they have an obj. extension. they seem to be wireframe and then "textures" are added over the base model. it seems to me you would loose most of the detail when the "texture" was removed.

or possibly surfaces? this is a render done in a modeling system called "poser" there seems to be a whole community of people who devote much time into making very intricate models like this. the ones of humans are very realistic looking. it appears that they are 1st done as a wireframe and then "textured" over to get realistic looking results. im not sure if you would loose the "texture" if it were somehow imported int mc.

that looks really good! when you said you used 70 dpi ,is that what it defaulted to when it came in? isnt the best resolution the actual size of the jpeg as it came in? what i mean is if the pic is very small say 1 x 2 the dpi would be very low and if the pic was say 14 x 16 the dpi would be much higher? im just trying to understand this a little better. also the art tutorial i looked at said to use the spline function because it would produce closed chains not necesarily the best conversion.

ok so i was ready to buy one of these other programs to do my tracing.i figured let me try it the old way i used to do it in ver 9 which was not using splines and i got very good results! the reason i was using splines was because i read an art tutorial which stated the best method was to use the "new" spline function. maybe i just dont get the spline way but ive tried adjusting just about everything. im pretty happy with the results im getting in mc the "old" way now. thanks for the replies!

thank you! that is about the same result i got in mc 10.6. the adobe one you did looked very good.i dont think i could have played around with the settings to get it as defined in mc. this is exactly what i wanted to know! although that dragon pic can be purchased as a vector the screenshot i captured is bust a bitmap and pixelated. i will try to dig up that old pic and file i did of my jeep years ago and post them.

this is not what im trying to do but it is a good example of what i an trying to convert.this looks very well defined with the black against the white.im really just looking for some help with the spline settings. maybe i am wrong and this is still a difficult design to convert from a raster to a vector.i have not used this in a long time but i remember using it back in ver 9 and i converted a very detaild picture of my jeep outside and it did a very good job even with the horrible color contrasts (i had to convert to b+w 1st of course) i would think something like this pic would be easy and come out very well. thanks for any input or help! mark

is there a tutorial somewhere on how to get good results using this? i find very detailed fine line clipart to use but im getting horrible results. i see there is now spline parameters and i think im just not getting it.

thanks this has prolly been asked a million times but how do i get to the ftp site again? i havent been there since the pld ver 9 days. speaking of ver 9. i started using ver 9.1 and loved it after transitioning from smartcam a long time ago. recently i used a computer here with ver 9.0 and man what a difference! the zoom on the mouse doesnt work the verify graphics is very strange and the one thing i cant stand is that for a contour there was no extend or shorten contour which i have always used! they only extended contours by playing around with the lead in and out. this now answered my question as to why they never use cutter comp.

thank you! ill try that!

i have a post that worked perfectly in mc 9 for my haas. our mc retailer at the time tweaked it perfectly for our needs in our shop.we used g97 local subs and this post output perfect code that i could depend on 100% everytime.i did the conversion to bring it up to date in mc 10.6 and everything works just as it did in 9 but i always went to the 1st op in the operations and would go to misc values.here i would select starting work coordinate (g54 etc) ,if the sub was to be in inc or absolute,and how many repeats. the feilds used to be labeled as this but now its just misc integer 1,2,3 etc.it works but i just have to remember where things were.can i change this somehow?

thanks!!! i never thought of that!