Just received a notification today (9-25-2017) when I opened Gibbscam that Gibbscam12 was ready to download and install. Only spent 30 minutes with it, but I think I will enjoy the new interface improvements that were implemented. The one improvement I think I will enjoy the most is the new locations of the do it/redo buttons. They also added the view commands around the 'axis block'. However I am not able to view the axis block when I installed GibbsCam12 (supposed to be located in the bottom left of the screen. Dose anyone know how to turn this on?
With all great respect to the Gibbscam development team, I still think Gibbscam is still playing catch up when comparing Gibbs to other cam softwares interface. I remember it wasn't that long ago that you could only undo one action at the very most. What? You just noticed your solid model is missing? Too late you mistakenly delete it 3 actions ago. It's long gone, start over!
On the cam side of things, I still can't believe that they don't have a field for pecking when tapping. The work around is having to open up the tapping operation after creating it and fill out the '@Op Start' box with'@pecktapping(Q0.600)' if you want it to peck tap. And if peck tapping is part of your standard process, you get to fill this out each and every time you create a tap cycle because this data is not save with your process data. So my advice to the development team is to come up with a way to preserve extra processes data that is only available on the operation titles (this also goes for Operation stop, operation comments, operation cutter comp #, ect. Ect.). All this data is part of the process that makes up the operation.
One other thing that I would like to see improved is the elimination of the windows that cover up the viewing area so when you select 'fit to view', you can see the whole part without it being covered up by a window. This gives a a false sense of the viewing area, forcing me to pan the screen or drag windows around unnecessary to view my part. Yes, the ability to customize your own toolbars will help with this, but I still think it falls a bit short.
Another enchantment for the I would like to see is being able to duplicate geometery, then transform it to another location or vise a versa, without have to close out of the 'duplication window' or one of the 'transform windows' I think a simple check box stating 'duplicate selection' yes/no. A great hack would be if the number of duplications is set to zero in the duplication window, it will only preform the transform operation.
I better stop now before I start ranting, but if you could add the ability to delete records to the materials database that would be great. The next thing I know I have three or more settings for the same tool, but no way of getting rid of them, just adding them. I guess I could edit the record so it would appear at the bottom of the list, but it is still there taking up space. Also I am always hunting down what tool is being used for an operation. If I look at the operation list all I see is the tool number and operation type. Great, I see it is using tool 4 and its a hole process. Open up the process. I see it is tapping. With what tool? Open up the tool list. Hunt down the tool number. Open up the tool. Great, it's a 1/4-20 tap. Dang it, look at all these windows that are covering my part. Pan, drag, Zoom cloose window. Hey what is opertion 5 doing? Grrrrr.
With that all said I am excited to tap into the productivity gains that the improved interface has to offer and discovering the new features that have been added with this latest release. Keep the good work up.