Generating and viewing toolpath while in operations window???

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone. Newbie to the forum. I have recently been playing with the CAM side of Fusion 360. While I'm currently out of the programming world (technical sales) I used to program in UG NX. It has been a few years since I have touched a CAM program but the fundamentals are still there.

I've been watching some CAM tutorial videos and have created a few programs. Still lots to learn but I have found one thing that has been bugging me. When I'm setting up an operation I don't see the generated toolpath until after I hit OK and close the operation window. At this point I see that that operation generates and then displays the updated toolpath. Every time I want to make a parameter change (stepover, entry/exit move, etc) I have to open up the operation, make my change, hit OK (closes operation window) THEN view the regenerated toolpath. Is there anyway to see the updated toolpath without closing the operation window? Seems like a lot of extra steps to see how parameter changes affected the toolpath. In NX there were generate and simulation buttons within the operation window. You could edit a parameter and immediately hit regenerate to see the changes. Having to hit OK to close the window every time in Fusion to view the toolpath seems a little counterintuitive. Am I missing something?

Thank you

[Anonymous]

bump

[Steinwerks]

You aren't missing anything, this is just how HSM is set up. Anything but the simplest toolpaths (such as Drill operations) are recalculated on exit.

It seems counterintuitive but having worked in CAMWorks with its preview button this isn't much different in that regard. I have never used NX though.

[jeff.pek]

That's right -- other than a few toolpaths (e.g., drill), we don't do any toolpath calculation/display until you accept a set of parameter values. We've talked about doing this more dynamically, so that more toolpaths behave like the simpler ones, but this would be a fair bit of plumbing work, and we just haven't elevated that above the other things we're working on. It's definitely on the radar, but I can't give an estimate of when we may try to bite that off. I certainly understand the value that could provide.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the feedback.

When you say "We've talked about doing this more dynamically" are you saying the toolpath would update automatically with every parameter change or would there be a button that would regenerate and update the toolpath? Just a button for regenerating (and verifying if possible) while within the operation would be great.

[jeff.pek]

Hi again -

Ideally, the former, but it's possible that there would be issues that required us to have the latter approach. While, technically, the generation could be done anytime, with the current set of parameters, there is still a reasonable amount of change required to create, and use, these transient results. Not overwhelming, but work, nonetheless.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Thank you Jeff. I appreciate the feedback.