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Plethora of questions/suggestions in regards to CAM

LibertyMachine
Mentor

Plethora of questions/suggestions in regards to CAM

LibertyMachine
Mentor
Mentor

I've been doing a decent amount of programming on a few parts, and in that time, I've noticed several things that I feel need to be brought to the developers attention and see what the intent is. I'm going to put everything I've encountered over the past few days in this thread, and I will start up ideas in the IdeaStation if an Autodesk employee feels they belong there. These are not being presented in any particular order, just more as they pop into my mind

 

Lighting Control?

 

In the attached pictures, you can see how the lighting changes as you move the part around. This is cool for rendering, but utterly useless for CAM. We need to see edges and points properly, not that easy to do with the current lighting configuration. Any chance of getting an option to turn off all shadows in CAM mode (or any mode for that matter)

Capture 1.PNG

 

Capture 2.PNG

 

 

CAM Dialog Box:

Fusion has it setup so it's docked on the right side of the screen. Not an issue. What is an issue is that sometimes it's collapsed on the width and needs to be dragged wider. Not a huge deal, but the only pick corner that I can find is in the lower right corner, which means I need to first click the top bar and drag the whole window over and then move to the bottom and then stretch out the window. Time consuming when you have many many operations going on. 

 

Storing last used cutting data?

 

In each operation for programming, there are a plethora of fields that need attention. When you have several features that are being machined with the same tool and all utilize the same parameters, such as feeds, speeds, arc in and out moves, vertical arc in moves (which are totally a waste of code, tbh) it becomes rather labrious to have to go through each and every field and make the_same_change_you_did_15_times_previous. Yes, you can go to the "Edit and Compare function" and kinda sorta paw through that to find the proper fields to make a global edit, and that is good. But it would be even better if you just saved the last known data and had it already there when I cicked on 2D countour for the 15th time and chose the same tool. (or event he second time you chose it for that matter)

 

Tangential Extension Distance

 

Very cool feature, makes it easy to force extra clearance for tools. Why can I not go negative though? In the next photo, how do you propose I deburr this edge and not collide with the walls?

Capture 5.PNG

 

 

 

CAM Simulation accuracy?

 

I understand that it's not currently supposed to be an accurate representation, but are there any plans to utilize a tolerance control over the CAM simulation? Esprit has ability to control the tolerance resulting in faster rendering when needed and finer visuals when needed. Consider the next photo. The first is what the edge is supposed to look like and the second is what the simulation shows. Mind you, the CODE looks fine (I've not physically cut the part, but reading the g-code, I'm certain it's all good) Also, another example of the lighting issues....

    Capture 4.PNGCapture 3.PNG

 

Height/depth dialog boxes need some love....

 

If you select any 2D, 3D or Drilling option, at some point, you need to start entering heights/depths, clearances etc. Everytime you open it, the "Top" and "Bottom" dialog boxes are expanded to allow edit, however, the "Clearance", "Retract" and "Feed" are all collapsed. Open em up, do your edits, click OK. Open it up again, and.....collapsed. Yay!

 

Furthermore, the default setting are applied each time a new box is opened. I don't want them set to these parameters, nor do I want to have to reset them every time

Stock:                                                  Preferred:

Capture 7.PNGCapture 6.PNG

 

Let's talk multiple operations and Tool Library.....

 

Ok, so the intent is to program everything in one file. Sounds good on paper. Let's look at the execution....

Oh, what's this? Multiple  different tools with the same number cause a few issues? hrmm....Yeah, you see, I have 2 ops on that part I've been working on. Some of the tooling is shared, some is not. On OP1, I use T1 thru 5. On OP2, I use T1, T2, and T3. Totally different tools under those numbers, but the library does not differentiate between what Setup a tool is being used on. I don't want my .187 endmill to be called T6. Yes, I can manually change that, but if I renumber tools, it overwrites it when I add another tool. There needs to be some mechanism in place to have the Library use dividers of some sort in the tooling list to allow renumbering of a selected Setup, not a global edit top to bottom

Capture 8.PNG

 

 

Lastly, lets look at "Save Stock"

 

Again, something that looks good in concept. Execution, not so much. So, we program multiple operations from the same screen and same file. Excellent. After Operation 1 is complete and I've simulated it out, I'd like to save the stock to use to display what is needed for Operation 2. Hmm, oh, I need to save stock to my hard drive? But....Fusion wants me to save my model on THEIR cloud, but I need to save the stock locally..oooookay...So now the file is getting split up and "collaboration" is starting to go out the window (and really, I don't know of many applications in the CAM world that really need collaboration) But, portability of a file needs to be there for many reasons, so files need to stay together, no?

At any rate, I save locally. I go to set my model in my Setup dialog and...hmmm...why is there no option to load stock? Oh well, I'll just set it as what I used for OP1 and figure it out later. Continue to Simulate, and lo and behold, there is an option to load previous saved stock. WHICH I NEED TO CLICK EACH TIME I SIMULATE. Yeah...not going to be using that option the way it's set....And the g-code is also being saved locally?

 

 

P.S, File Structure

 

I mean, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the ability to save things locally, seriously, no sarcasm. But it needs to be an ALL, not a certain amount. Go ahead, have me backup everything to the cloud, non optional. I'm okay with that. Just give me the ability to save local, that is all. Every job we run is setup in the system with a certain structure to it. The computer file structure contains Material Certs, PO's, Inspection Records, many many different files. It's not serving us well to not even have a link to the related F360 file. Again, now we have files getting split up...

 

TL;DR, Lots of stuff that needs some improvement

 


Seth Madore
Owner, Liberty Machine, Inc.
Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.
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Replies (9)

fredsi
Collaborator
Collaborator

gearsoup,

 

Haven't had too much time to go over your list in depth, but...

 

1) I've been able to enter negative Tangential Extension Distances on the geometry page; seems to work fine for keeping away from vertical walls.  (This is on my iMac at home; can't test till tomorrow on PC).

 

2) Can I assume you've tried using copy/paste to duplicate operations (carry over tool and values to new geometry)? Aside from knowing the gotcha of having to RMB on the setup to do the paste operation it does allow you to carry over values to new ops.

 

Fred

 

 

 

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LibertyMachine
Mentor
Mentor

On the PC, entering a negative value in the "Tangential Extension Field" field, and many others, results in an error message and the inability to click the "OK"  button.

Yes, I can copy and paste an operation, and that is the work-around that I've been using for the time being. 


Seth Madore
Owner, Liberty Machine, Inc.
Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.
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jeff.pek
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thank you for the thoughtful comments. It's difficult to respond completely to all points, so you may see "piecemeal" responses.

 

One thing that may be less-than-obvious is the CAM component's support for templates. You can store an operation -- with its parameter values set -- to a file, and then use that to create new operations. To use this:

 

1) Right-click on an existing operation, choose "Store as Template"

2) (Later) Right-click on a setup, and click "Create from Template", then choose the file you saved in step 1.

 

Note that this functionality is being updated in the upcoming Fusion update to be simpler (to select saved templates), and to support saving these templates in your Cloud storage area.

 

Jeff

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Anonymous
Not applicable

I hate templates. Just have the settings be persistent, please, I'm begging you.

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fredsi
Collaborator
Collaborator

gearsoup,

 

Just tried negative values in Tangential Extension on PC at work (Win7 64b) and it took it with no problem.

 

RE: persistent values. Presumably you've gone into the compare and edit tables and RMB to set defaults, set all defaults, edit formulas and the like? This has helped me quite a bit with standardizing ops and getting rid of annoying values (for me) like vertical radii. Once again, apologies if this is old news.

 

Fred

 

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LibertyMachine
Mentor
Mentor
No, I was not aware that there was an option to edit default values. Thank you, I will look into that when I get home

Seth Madore
Owner, Liberty Machine, Inc.
Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.
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Anonymous
Not applicable
It would be so easy to code persistence... just have it set default when you close the window. Boom, done. Perhaps this could be a Preferences option?
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jeff.pek
Community Manager
Community Manager

BTW, there is also a "Make Default" context menu item on the operations in the browser.

This can be used to set default parameter values (except those coming from the selected tool) for subsequently-created operations of the same type.

 

Jeff

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kb9ydn
Advisor
Advisor


@Anonymous wrote:

I've been doing a decent amount of programming on a few parts, and in that time, I've noticed several things that I feel need to be brought to the developers attention and see what the intent is. I'm going to put everything I've encountered over the past few days in this thread, and I will start up ideas in the IdeaStation if an Autodesk employee feels they belong there. These are not being presented in any particular order, just more as they pop into my mind

 

Lighting Control?

 

In the attached pictures, you can see how the lighting changes as you move the part around. This is cool for rendering, but utterly useless for CAM. We need to see edges and points properly, not that easy to do with the current lighting configuration. Any chance of getting an option to turn off all shadows in CAM mode (or any mode for that matter)

Capture 1.PNG

 

Capture 2.PNG

  


 

 

 

Agreed.  CAM mode should be setup for maximum visibility of all surfaces.

 

 

 

 


@Anonymous wrote:

CAM Dialog Box:

Fusion has it setup so it's docked on the right side of the screen. Not an issue. What is an issue is that sometimes it's collapsed on the width and needs to be dragged wider. Not a huge deal, but the only pick corner that I can find is in the lower right corner, which means I need to first click the top bar and drag the whole window over and then move to the bottom and then stretch out the window. Time consuming when you have many many operations going on. 


 

 

To me all of the dialg boxes in Fusion seem sort of clunky.  They don't optimize their size very well based on the contents.  Sometimes they are larger than they need to be and other times some text is cut off.  I think this is one of those things that will likely improve gradually over time.

 

 

 

 


@Anonymous wrote:
 

Storing last used cutting data?

 

In each operation for programming, there are a plethora of fields that need attention. When you have several features that are being machined with the same tool and all utilize the same parameters, such as feeds, speeds, arc in and out moves, vertical arc in moves (which are totally a waste of code, tbh) it becomes rather labrious to have to go through each and every field and make the_same_change_you_did_15_times_previous. Yes, you can go to the "Edit and Compare function" and kinda sorta paw through that to find the proper fields to make a global edit, and that is good. But it would be even better if you just saved the last known data and had it already there when I cicked on 2D countour for the 15th time and chose the same tool. (or event he second time you chose it for that matter)

 


 

Having the last used settings be persistent seems like it would be a good idea, but more often that not I find it annoying, because usually I DON'T want exactly the same settings as before.  But, there are times when you do want the same settings, so the Solidworks version of CAM has a few things that make this easier (some are already in Fusion and some are not yet).  Probably the most useful of these is the "make duplicate" command when you RMB on an operation.  It does exatly what you would expect, it makes an exact copy of an operation.  Fusion has copy and paste, which is good, but "make duplicate" is faster (and I'm assuming will be in Fusion before long).  I use this one a LOT.

 

Templates are also a good option for some things (although I've never bothered to set any up).

 

If you want to make an operation based on the same geometry using a different strategy, you can use "create derived operation" from the RMB menu of a selected operation.  This copies only the geometry selections from the selected operation to the new operation.  I don't use this very much be it's nice when you have an operation with a ton of selected geometry.

 

When programming an operation, when you want to use an existing tool you have the option to use the default speeds/feeds for that tool, or you can use the feeds/speeds from another operation that is already using that tool.  In the tool selection window, in the tool list for the current design you will see a list of all the tools being used, and for each tool a list of all the operations that use that tool.  If you slect the line in bold you will get the default feeds and speed for that tool.  If you select one of the operations under that tool, you will get the speeds/feeds from that operation.  This is also quite handy and is in Fusion now.  However, with the new tool library things may change, so not sure if this will still be valid.

 

Fusion allows you to set default values (and formulas!) for fields from the compare and edit window, but the Solidowrks CAM version also lets you right click on a value directly and make it a default.  It does the same thing as in compare and edit but it's more convenient, since you don't have to wade through a table just to set one or two values.  This should also make it into Fusion eventually.

 

 

 


gearsoup wrote: 

Tangential Extension Distance

 

Very cool feature, makes it easy to force extra clearance for tools. Why can I not go negative though? In the next photo, how do you propose I deburr this edge and not collide with the walls?

Capture 5.PNG

 


 

 

That should work.  If it doesn't it's very likely a bug.

 

 

 

 


@Anonymous wrote:
 

Height/depth dialog boxes need some love....

 

If you select any 2D, 3D or Drilling option, at some point, you need to start entering heights/depths, clearances etc. Everytime you open it, the "Top" and "Bottom" dialog boxes are expanded to allow edit, however, the "Clearance", "Retract" and "Feed" are all collapsed. Open em up, do your edits, click OK. Open it up again, and.....collapsed. Yay!

 

Furthermore, the default setting are applied each time a new box is opened. I don't want them set to these parameters, nor do I want to have to reset them every time

Stock:                                                  Preferred:

Capture 7.PNGCapture 6.PNG

 


 

This would be a good example of where you should set some default values you like.  It would also be nice if the software would remember when you've expanded or collapsed certain sections.  Maybe someday...

 

 

 


@Anonymous wrote:
 

Let's talk multiple operations and Tool Library.....

 

Ok, so the intent is to program everything in one file. Sounds good on paper. Let's look at the execution....

Oh, what's this? Multiple  different tools with the same number cause a few issues? hrmm....Yeah, you see, I have 2 ops on that part I've been working on. Some of the tooling is shared, some is not. On OP1, I use T1 thru 5. On OP2, I use T1, T2, and T3. Totally different tools under those numbers, but the library does not differentiate between what Setup a tool is being used on. I don't want my .187 endmill to be called T6. Yes, I can manually change that, but if I renumber tools, it overwrites it when I add another tool. There needs to be some mechanism in place to have the Library use dividers of some sort in the tooling list to allow renumbering of a selected Setup, not a global edit top to bottom

Capture 8.PNG

 


 

 

If you are renumbering tools with the "renumber tools" menu then yeah, I dont' think that will work.  I always renumber tools individually so as not to disrupt anything else.  But then it always asks you if you want to overwrite the feeds and speeds for operations that use that tool, and I NEVER do.  And even though I tell it to stop asking me it still asks.  I'm assuming the new tool library should take care of this as well (maybe not right away, but when they get it rolled out and fully featured).

 

 


@Anonymous wrote:

 

Lastly, lets look at "Save Stock"

 

Again, something that looks good in concept. Execution, not so much. So, we program multiple operations from the same screen and same file. Excellent. After Operation 1 is complete and I've simulated it out, I'd like to save the stock to use to display what is needed for Operation 2. Hmm, oh, I need to save stock to my hard drive? But....Fusion wants me to save my model on THEIR cloud, but I need to save the stock locally..oooookay...So now the file is getting split up and "collaboration" is starting to go out the window (and really, I don't know of many applications in the CAM world that really need collaboration) But, portability of a file needs to be there for many reasons, so files need to stay together, no?

At any rate, I save locally. I go to set my model in my Setup dialog and...hmmm...why is there no option to load stock? Oh well, I'll just set it as what I used for OP1 and figure it out later. Continue to Simulate, and lo and behold, there is an option to load previous saved stock. WHICH I NEED TO CLICK EACH TIME I SIMULATE. Yeah...not going to be using that option the way it's set....And the g-code is also being saved locally?

 

 

 

I never use this so not much to say, except that it probably does need some work.

 

 

 


gearsoup wrote: 

 

P.S, File Structure

 

I mean, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the ability to save things locally, seriously, no sarcasm. But it needs to be an ALL, not a certain amount. Go ahead, have me backup everything to the cloud, non optional. I'm okay with that. Just give me the ability to save local, that is all. Every job we run is setup in the system with a certain structure to it. The computer file structure contains Material Certs, PO's, Inspection Records, many many different files. It's not serving us well to not even have a link to the related F360 file. Again, now we have files getting split up...

 

TL;DR, Lots of stuff that needs some improvement

 


 

 

Yeah, what this comes down to is integration with existing systems.  Forcing cloud storage ONLY is a big hindrance towards this.  The vision of one big program all done by AD is a fine goal, but eventually at some point it WILL have to interface with other systems.  I really think if they setup their cloud system to work like Dropbox or Google drive, they could still maintain all the benefits of cloud storage (collaboration, data redundancy, anti-piracy, etc.) and still make it easy to interface to other systems.

 

 

 

C|

 

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