topic Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited in PowerShape and PowerMill API Forum

Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 08:59:03 GMT

Hello API Forum,

I am preparing a form and in that require help (Visual studio & VB language)

I am trying to collect toolpath information like Tolerance, Feed & Speeds which can be edited by multiple selection.

In this Toolpath list (ListView) is being populated using For loop but Tol, feed and speed are not being captured.

FYI, Attached images shows Form and Code.

Please can you advise how this can be done or suggest if other solution is required to achieve this.

Many Thanks,

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 08:59:54 GMT

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 10:08:57 GMT

You are only adding the text strings to the List Box for "Feed", "RPM" etc. You would need to query PowerMill to find out what the values are. The OLE API you are using is super old and was replaced by the API described in the sticky posts in this forum. I would suggest you use those instead.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 10:14:17 GMT

Sorry, looking at the screenshot again, I can see that you have used a mix of the two APIs, new and old.

Remove the references to the OLE one. You would then need to do something like:

For Each (toolpath As PMToolpath In session.Toolpaths) Dim lvItem = ListView1.Items.Add(toolpath.Name) lvItem.SubItems.AddRange(toolpath.Tolerance, toolpath.SurfaceSpeed, toolpath.CuttingFeed) Next

However the API currently doesn't have a Tolerance property for Toolpaths. I could add that for you though if that would help?

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:39:36 GMT

Hello Luke,

Thanks for the feedback.

I tried to remove as instructed but "toolpath" gives a error as shown in below image.

Please can you advise what I am doing wrong. I have attached the code and image below.

As a side note : Also advise how would you add Tolerance property ? FYI you can exclude not to include this time-being.

Imports Autodesk.ProductInterface.PowerMILL Public Class Form1 Dim powerMill As New PMAutomation(Autodesk.ProductInterface.InstanceReuse.UseExistingInstance) Dim session As PMProject = powerMill.ActiveProject Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load End Sub Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click ListView1.Items.Clear() Dim toolpath As String For Each (toolpath As PMToolpath In session.Toolpaths) Dim lvItem = ListView1.Items.Add(toolpath.Name) lvItem.SubItems.AddRange(toolpath.Tolerance, toolpath.SurfaceSpeed, toolpath.CuttingFeed) Next End Sub End Class

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:44:23 GMT

You have Dim toolpath As String. This is a duplicate definition. Just remove that line and it should resolve the issue.

You will then see an error because Tolerance is not a valid property of PMToolpath. Let me know if you want this added to the API.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 12:01:46 GMT

Hello Luke,

Done changes as requested but still showing error.

In image, have shown the Error comping in Error List tab stating "toolpath" is not declared.

Kindly have a look and advise.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 12:09:46 GMT

Ah, try removing the brackets:

For Each toolpath As PMToolpath in session.Toolpaths

C# uses brackets but VB doesn't... My mistake!

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 12:33:20 GMT

Hello Luke,

Thanks for the information and it worked in addition to changing the bracket positions for AddRange also.

In addition, please can you advise what needs to be done in order to achieve task as shown in below image.
As you can see, I am trying to update Speed and feeds of multiple toolpath in one go by selecting the required ones only.

Many Thanks

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 13:21:16 GMT

You should be able to do something like:

For Each item As ListViewItem in ListView1.SelectedItems Dim name = item.Text session.Toolpaths(name).SurfaceSpeed = CDbl(txtSurfaceSpeed.Text) session.Toolpaths(name).CuttingFeed = CDbl(txtCuttingFeed.Text) Next

where txtSurfaceSpeed and txtCuttingFeed are your two textboxes.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:17:35 GMT

Hello Luke,

Thanks for your help and it is working

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:18:51 GMT

Great news! Any further issues, feel free to post.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 16:22:08 GMT

Hello Luke,

In the working exampled, i tried to add ToolDiameter column to be outputted in ListView but it came back with below error. I am not sure why this happened. Also will it be possible to add a property for Toolpath Depth of Cut, Tolerance and Toolpath Stepover

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 07:50:53 GMT

I would suggest instead that you access the tool itself and read the property from there:

var tool = session.Tools[toolpath.ToolName];

var diameter = tool.Diameter;

I can look at adding the other ones for you. Which toolpath strategies are you using?

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:39:29 GMT

Hello Luke,

I tried using the solution provided but still it showing error.
please can advise on this.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 15:54:35 GMT

Hi, does the toolpath not have a tool assigned to it? I think this is the only time when this can happen.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:11:54 GMT

Hello Luke,

You are correct, there was one toolpath where tool was not assigned to a toolpath.

By assigning it the error has been removed.

In order to eliminate the issue of tool not assigned would like to assign an If & Else loop, please can you advice what code will come :

If ****** Tool not assigned to toolpath ***** Then MsgBox("Tool Not Assigned") Else *****Will go in the current Loop to populate the toolpath

Many Thanks

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:19:13 GMT

Hello Luke,

Apologies, in addition to above, is there a code to output Max & Min X,Y,Z of a toolpath.

Many Thanks.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

luke.edwards.autodesk — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:48:21 GMT

Hi. I have updated the API to handle this case. It should return an empty string if there is no tool. I have also added a Tool property that will return either the tool or null if there is no tool.

Regarding your other question, you have GetBlockLimits available on the PMProject.

But if you want the actual limits of the calculated toolpath then you would need to create a pattern from the toolpath and then output that to curves and get the bounds of that. The first part isn't supported by the API though at the moment. But if you have it as a PMPattern you can use ToPolylines and get the BoundingBox of each to find the true bounds.

Re: Populating Toolpath along with Toolpath tolerance, Speed and Feed which can be edited

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 15:20:56 GMT

Hi Luke,

Thanks for the update.

One thing noticed that when populating the toolpath list in ListView, the order of toolpath are not populating in the order of toolpath which are there in Powermill. Is there any solution for that

Many Thanks