Window select missing in CAM?

[stevempotter]

I am trying to engrave text. I find that CAM routinely misses some letters if I select a block of text by clicking on one of its contours. So I go back to MODEL and explode the text. Then back to CAM. Now here it would be very helpful if I could draw a window around the exploded text contours to select all of it. But nope, it seems I have to click on every single contour to be engraved. This is very tedious and sometimes causes errors that require me to start all over. Or I might forget to select the inner contour of a P or D or O or Q or R etc. Is there a reason why there is no Window Select in CAM? Or am I just missing it somehow? 

I see other posts here about the Missing Letters bug. Any resolution on that? 

[523Industries]

I don't know if this will make a difference but how are you window-selecting?  If you go from left-to-right it'll only capture features that fit within the selection box, but if you go right-to-left it'll capture everything that touches the box even beyond that boundary.

Can you share your model?

[stevempotter]

I don't think it matters what the model is (though I have now attached an example with some text on it).

In CAM, choose 2D : ENGRAVE path type. When you get to Contour Selection in the Geometry tab, there is no window selection possible to select text or exploded text, leftward or rightward. Why is that??

[meletis.stathis]

Hi @stevempotter,

Thanks for posting at the forums. Currently there is no support for window selection for text. However, it is already in the Idea Station and is gathering support. Window selection in CAM
As for the missing letter bug, I cannot reproduce it from the file that you have provided. I tried the file from the Engrave will not engrave letter m, but the sketch text was empty. Perhaps I am missing the font.

If you can reproduce the missing letter bug, please let us know.

[beav700]

We are having the same issue. Why window selection is turned off in Cam. There is no way to select individual curves with window. Very time consuming selecting one line at a time.

[daniel_lyall]

If you are going to use the engrave op you do not need to explode text, you just turn the sketch and model off when you run the sim so you can see the toolpath.

You can roughly get a flat depth by lifting the bottom hight up to -0.85 on your model.

If you want a completely flat bottom to the text use traces or contour with compensation type set to off in the passes tab.

With the sketch and model turned off