Trace smoothing

[friesendrywall]

As near as I can tell, smoothing has no effect on a trace toolpath.  Has anyone else noticed this?  It is pretty much line segments.

Try it with the post processor of choice, but line segments are what I get.

[Steinwerks]

True, Trace does not do smoothing well, if at all. I would also say this is a pretty weird use-case as it's really a 3D toolpath masquerading as a 2D since it is not model-aware but moves in three axes and that's really how it's expected to be used (well, it works for line engraving also).

For what it's worth the post doesn't smooth anything. If it is fed line segments by the CAM that is what it will output. It does some arc fitting according to sweep radius and accuracy though, so it can break up arcs or linearize them according to set tolerances.

[friesendrywall]

Well, the checkbox does say smoothing, and it does check when you click it.

[Steinwerks]

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@friesendrywall wrote:

Well, the checkbox does say smoothing, and it does check when you click it.

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That doesn't mean it can fit arcs to the path depending on how it's generated. It looks silly, but using Trace for this geometry would be silly too, IMO.

This is something I'd expect Trace to be used for and cannot be fit to arcs accurately:

That it doesn't do sketch geometry well is certainly a point of contention, even with me. I look at Trace as brute-forcing a geometry-based toolpath and use it about as rarely as I can manage.

@jeff.pek or @paul.clauss can either one of you speak to this or why Trace does such a poor job of handling Smoothing?

[friesendrywall]

Whether or not the use case is silly seems irrelevant to me.  I generated a simple f3d to show the issue.

I used it because it is not situationally aware like 2d contour.  Selecting two close or overlapping lines with 2d contour and no tool offset requires separate operations, where trace just follows the lines.

Regardless of whether 3d or 2d, if it fits a g2 or g3 I want it to use it.  CNC machines are in the dark ages memory and rs232 speed wise, so I like to see stuff optimized.  More than likely this just got overlooked in the program, I can't see the difficulty in implementing this, can it be more than copy and paste internally?

[fonsecr]

Hi all,

I have Trace set up to only do smoothing to the XZ and YZ planes. If you were using Trace in a plane for XY then 2D Contour should be used in general. If you do have common examples were you really prefer to use Trace in a flat XY plane then we could add smoothing for that too. But note that Trace in wont smooth Trace with Z moves (helical) which is what is the intended purpose for Trace. Hence the current smoothing behavior.

[friesendrywall]

Its another tool in the box that 2d contour doesn't always do the way its needed.  Is there a reason why XY couldn't be in there, and would cause a problem?

The main reason why I used trace is that it is non situationally aware, so for example with overlapping lines say, on engraving paths, or general engraving trace works better than 2d contour with compensation off.

[Garrett_Wade]

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@fonsecr wrote:

Hi all,

I have Trace set up to only do smoothing to the XZ and YZ planes. If you were using Trace in a plane for XY then 2D Contour should be used in general. If you do have common examples were you really prefer to use Trace in a flat XY plane then we could add smoothing for that too. But note that Trace in wont smooth Trace with Z moves (helical) which is what is the intended purpose for Trace. Hence the current smoothing behavior.

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I found this post which explained why I wasn't seeing arc smoothing on a tool path on a trace toolpath that only moved in the XY plane...great, understood, and forced a 2d contour to generate my clean arcs rather than tons of line segments which scale with my tolerance.

One thing that would be nice is if you could drive a 2d contour than off a center compensation rather than only left or right comp. I tried to achieve something similar by doing a negative stock to leave, but this isn't ideal since you can't just put the tool radius. It might just be OCD annoying me but putting a number just under the radius to not have the negative stock to leave error out is annoying.

You can for sure draw an offset sketch to get the tool to go to the same place, but depending on what you are doing and how many of them you need to do.... that can be tedious vs what center compensation like trace can do

[seth.madore]

@Garrett_Wade in 2D Contour, you can set Compensation to "Off", does that not work for you?

 

[Garrett_Wade]

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@seth.madore wrote:

@Garrett_Wade in 2D Contour, you can set Compensation to "Off", does that not work for you?

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 I actually never thought of this. I think center would still be nice to not remove compensations, but doing as you suggested is a useable workaround for sure.

Thanks!