Guys we absolutely need to see the custom tool and it being used in a failing operation. Please send it in to [email protected]

Rickster - You are correct the fast forward to end button is analogous to the Turbo mode in old verify.

bedwards, At the top of the operations manager there is a button called Backplot Verify Options, in there there is a setting to turn comp on or off.

We have isolated the issue you are seeing. It is not a conspiracy to get everyone to move to the stock model tool. It is the side affect of fixing another issue that resulted in the normals in the .stl file being defined differently. The .stl data is perfectly valid as OneYankFan1 has seen when he used the .stl model in the simulator. The issue is in the rendering done in Mastercam. We already have a fix for this in X8 that you will see in the first public beta in May and we are working on a solution for MU2.

Robert, Looks like a bug in the 3 axis engine. I logged it as D-13699 and we will fix it as soon as possible.

Yes we did add this to .xml file for those people that really need it. However doing so may cost you time on simpler parts as the biggest benefit to the 3 axis engine is speed. For the vast majority of people the automatic selection is the best option.

Hi Jack, We have this issue fixed in our daily builds. It did not make the MU2 release because we didn't fix it quickly enough to make the cutoff date for MU. It was bit more involved than we had anticipated which caused the delay. You can see a version with this fix in it, when X8 goes into public beta which is on schedule for the first half of May. This was fixed under issue D-08857.

You can also turn off the collision checking between the tool and the stock with the pull-down on the Home tab. Each section of the tool can be collision checked, by turning off all but the cutting length you would be bypassing the problem with the shoulder on the tool.

Greg: We do not at this point have a way to have a defaulted external .stl, the default state is to use the workpiece (whatever is displayed in Mastercam when entering Verify) as the default item to compare. I will add a request on your behalf to allow this to be defaulted.

BBprecise - This was a bug that was fixed in X7MU2. This will be released shortly to the public, we are just finalizing everything for the installation at this time.

Chipman: I already logged it for you.

It is automatically assigned the same color as Mastercam. You don't have independent control at this time.

The development of the new backplot and verify tool gave us an opportunity to take a step back and determine what we are trying to achieve with these tools. The ultimate goal is to give the user a visualization of the in-process through to the final part. Identification of gouges and undesirable motion, and confirm the part is ready to manufacture. Mastercams operation manager is not a sequencer, meaning all operations aren't necessarily posted and output. We asked why people ghost items in the interface and we received feedback that it was to prevent the items from being posted, often these ops are 'what if' scenarios or alternate methods to machine so keeping them is desirable. In backplot/verify we wanted to respect what the user was intending and by ghosting we are being told don't output. If you have a large number of ops and take the time to ghost some, we still want the user to be able to select all and have the ghosted ops not verified.

Dodgerfan - Lathe stock technology is based on a 2D spun profile. The software updates the stock with every move of the tool which requires the lathe stock to be recalculated each time. Lathe toolpaths typically have less moves than a mill part. In Mill we cannot assume a 2D stock model and updating with every move would be horrifically slow without much benefit. That's why we implemented the stock model as an operation type of tool that gives you the power to decide when a stock model is needed.

Cementhead - Please send in a part with the tools you are using to [email protected]. I would like to see why we aren't supporting the tools you are using. Also please let me know which version of Mastercam you are using.

Dodgerfan - The technology to save an stl model as a solid or even wireframe is in its infancy. STL is a simple, dumb, collection of triangles. To be able to identify edges, holes, features, etc is very difficult thing to do. You can merge and stl file into your current file as a single STL Mesh entity, use it a drive surface in a toolpath, use it as a stock model, shade it, transform it, but thats about it. I would encourage you to try using the Stock Model operation for this type of interaction however. By using the stock model, you get an associative model that is contained in your part file and can be exported if needed. Its also accurate and available as a stock model.

MoMo1108 - You have the ability to control the stl save in the file/options page while in Verify. Also you may want to try using the Stock Model operation as this is associative and can be used as the source of stock for your next verify session (Backplot/Verify Options on the Ops Manager).

Del, I am not sure if there are enough people who change them often to justify that. Are there any stop conditions that you need that we don't provide? Are we missing any? If there were more items to choose from, then presets mike make more sense.

What is your opinion of a button toggle that would suspend stop conditions. That way you would have to reset them each time, you could just click the toggle to suspend them whicle keeping the selected conditions (useful if you use more than one stop condition)

We could make the fast forward to end option ignore stop conditions but you wouldn't see the motion occur, would that be OK?

The tool appearance option must be set to shaded for the holder option for material to show up. I don't know why they are connected together but it seems to be a requirement. So set the tool appearance to shaded and then the option for holder will activate.

We are currently working on the area of rendered quality after a verify session on different sized parts. If anyone has any sample parts that they can send ([email protected]) we will use them as part of our testing effort. We try to anticipate what we expect to encounter, but there is no substitute for customer parts. All parts will be used internally only and will not be distributed. Thank You Very Much

Propi62, the selection of the 3 axis or 5 axis is made at the time you launch Verify. When the button is pushed, the software analyzes the tools and toolpaths selected and if a tool with the possibility of an undercut is selected or more than one toolplane is included, then the 5 axis engine is selected. You can manually change to the other engine in the File/Options page inside Verify. In order to speed the verification process up, we don't fully analyze each toolpath for a true undercut we key off of the tool type and toolplane only. This is not accurate in all cases which is why you can change it manually. There is no way to default to 5axis or 3axis as it is selected at run time.

Rawbn Hood: Two things to try, first you can set your tolerance for the saved model out of simulator by going to the File/Options page. This may help with the saved Model, second when reading the model in, you have control of the incoming tolerance on the Backplot/Verify Options page located on the Operations Manager toolbar. Also, as Matthew suggested, we have been a lot of progress with the new Stock Model tool and it has its own stl compare feature. Its definitely worth checking out.

CamMan1, essentially the system will calculate a bounding box around all the geometry and us the center point of that bounding box as the location for the planes, so if they are far from the origin that's ok, it will find your part.