Terminating a simple line

[john_mccarron]

I know that this question might seem somewhat elementary, but how do you terminate a simple line without it going on forever in space? I keep trying to place points where I want the line to stop and start, I then hit them with the "connect" button, but nothing works. Sure, I can do a mouse drag from the line menu, but as far as I know, I can't set that to start and stop in any particular spot. Simply put, I'd like to draw some open shapes and reading the manual says very little on terminating etc.

[cadman]

Select both the point & the line then click connect. Then select the other point and line, click connect.

Connect/disconnect is also available in the right click menu. If you still cannot connect you probably have duplicate lines or points. Use the cleanup tool to delete all duplicate geometry.

[john_mccarron]

Thanks a million. It's so damn simple and so far I've only been dealing with closed contours in most of my work, but my new job nescessitates open shapes from time to time. In Mastercam it's easy, but I'm fairly new to Gibbs, so there will be many questions to come. Speaking of which, how do I work the End Markers for contouring etc... What's the difference between the round marker and the square marker. The manual is pretty confusing on this. I can't seem to move them and get them to stay. They usually snap back to the original position.

Originally Posted by cadman Select both the point & the line then click connect. Then select the other point and line, click connect. Connect/disconnect is also available in the right click menu. If you still cannot connect you probably have duplicate lines or points. Use the cleanup tool to delete all duplicate geometry.

[cadman]

The square markers are to indicate what geometry feature you want to start on (white square) and what geometry feature you want to end on (black square). The round markers are what point on that geometry feature you want to start (white round) and end (black round).

If you have a contour made up of 500 arcs, lines and splines but you only want a toolpath along ten of those geometry features you would click on the piece of geometry you want to start on to set the first marker, then drag the black square marker to the geometry feature you want to end on. Then place the round markers where you want to start and stop. Also, you can right click on the round markers to explicitly set an additional distance to enter and exit.

[john_mccarron]

Once again. Many thanks. That clears it all up.

Originally Posted by cadman The square markers are to indicate what geometry feature you want to start on (white square) and what geometry feature you want to end on (black square). The round markers are what point on that geometry feature you want to start (white round) and end (black round). If you have a contour made up of 500 arcs, lines and splines but you only want a toolpath along ten of those geometry features you would click on the piece of geometry you want to start on to set the first marker, then drag the black square marker to the geometry feature you want to end on. Then place the round markers where you want to start and stop. Also, you can right click on the round markers to explicitly set an additional distance to enter and exit.

[machineoperator]

then drag the black square marker to the geometry feature you want to end on

Here is a shortcut.

Insead of dragging the black square you can hold down the ctrl and shift buttons on the keyboard and move the mouse to the geometry you want to end on and left click on the mouse, the black markers will jump to that geometry.