Linked Geometry selections for Operations

[Laurens-3DTechDraw]

An Idea I've had for a long time now, and I think many other.

Why can't have the ease of use of both feature based and model based CAM systems.

Feature-based makes drilling holes and machining pockets easy. Even when you want to do Centering, drilling, chamfering, tapping, or want a pocket roughed, floor finished, sidewall finished easily.

Because you can just select the feature for all the different operations and thus make programming easy.

Why can't we just have one operation that has the geometry selections in it and refer other operations to that one.

That way you could have a template M12 tapping, Which has Centering Operation-Drilling Operation-Tapping operation.

The Centering Operation has the geometry selected(Holes), the Drilling and Tapping Operation point towards the Centering operation for their geometry.

That means that for this very very simple part we now have to do 15 geometry selections. (With multiple clicks each)

But with the new method, you would only need to do this 3 times.

And is parametric, so it stays linked when you change the main selections.

Makes it very convenient for users that have often changing designs.

UI wise I'm thinking like this:

Part is attached as well.

Linked Geometries.SLDPRT

[porsbym]

Thanks for the suggestion, Laurens.

We have had something along those lines in mind for a long time, and it's only because it has not become a top priority that we have gotten around to this.

I'm curious, though, to see how many people think this would be a big improvement. With enough interest, maybe we can shuffle around some priorities.

/Mark

[LibertyMachine]

Back in the day (10yrs ago) I used MasterCam X, which had a similar option: "Use Last Selection". This worked great in all forms of drilling and yes, even contour work. I would see this as a refinement of that idea and I would welcome it greatly

[scottmoyse]

The drag and drop options in HSMWorks are already a help, and are missed in HSM and Fusion. This would be a much better solution across the board.

[ArjanDijk]

Hi @porsbym, this on the wishlist of all the customers that I visit that use HSM at least once a day. They all work with templates, but hate the fact that they need to select the same geometry for 3 or 4 operations.

It would be best if a template for for example center-drill-tap keeps their link after importing. So, centering has the geomerty selection, drilling and tapping have the link to the centering operation and upon adding the template, you only have to edit 1 operation.

[Steinwerks]

GibbsCAM had a previous drill selection as well, and a Reverse Order button that I have mentioned a few times around here that I would KILL for, especially because I simply cannot believe it would be difficult to implement (just put it where the Reverse chain button is in HSMWorks).

At any rate, my vote's in.

[LibertyMachine]

@Steinwerks oh jeez, forgot about that "Reverse Order" option in MCAM. Yeah, I would do some questionable deeds to get that implemented..

[Steinwerks]

@LibertyMachine Yeah but GibbsCAM has a much better sorting algorithm. Best "traveling salesman" solver that I've ever seen. Not even joking, it's one of the things that I miss most about that software package.

I don't miss much about Mastercam. 

[Anonymous]

I said as much in the Instagram post, but both of the other CAM packages i'm using each have this implemented, and more.. In solidworks, you can use selection groups to make your life a bit easier sometimes, but it's not a direct replacement, it just helps with managing large quantities of selections (I largely use it as a crutch for the massive slowdown that happens when selecting large quantities of faces as selections in 3D operations)

I'd add that while we're in there, allowing selections to occur based on other definitions, surface color for instance, packs even more value; then, you can drive (on the CAD side) your metric tapped holes to each come out with a specific surface color, tell the operation(s) to use that color, and never even need to select any geometry.

But I definitely like the implementation @Laurens-3DTechDraw has suggested as well.

[Anonymous]

Is the shift-drag operation behavior that exists in HSMWorks for copying geometry selections implemented in Inventor HSM or Fusion?

[scottmoyse]

no it's not implemented Rob. So those kinds of handy nuggets of awesomeness aren't implemented in Fusion or HSM.... You can't even control the visibility of objects while the CAM operations dialog is open in Inventor HSM... Erich is a total joke.

[Anonymous]

 @scottmoyse - yeah, Erich is a ****, Sheila told me he's sleeping with Kylie. Between he and Chad, i'm not sure who I despise more!

[scottmoyse]

LOL

[Anonymous]

That would be really great to have a real answer for feature based cam systems. For drill operations in templates it feels really unnatural annoying to select every hole or point three or more times. It would be nice to be able to 'group' these operations and let be run under one geometry selection. Like a pattern method?

An addition on that would be to autodetect the toolorientation for holes or either vector geometry as a checkbox option to avoid endless same operations for other tool orientations.

Lots of kudos for laurens

[Anonymous]

If I could vote for this 10 times, I would. NX does a good job of separating geometry selection and operation creation. I'm thinking having an object in the tree where geometry is stored and able to be referenced would be fantastic. A geometry item could be a selection of holes, groups of contours, groups of drive and/or check surfaces, etc.

[ArjanDijk]

Yeah, seeing that this idea got "only" 24 votes, I think that not everybody gets the idea...

[neiljackson]

I wholeheartedly endorse this idea. 

Along the same lines, HSMWorks would benefit from a operation definition language that would allow the user to compose the built-in operations together into a composite operation, with the sub-operations inheriting parameters from the parent operation.  HSMWorks' concept of a template operation is a step in the right direction, but not quite the same as what I am proposing.

[DarthBane55]

Is this still something you guys have in mind for a long time?  Been 3 years, any update?