mastercam art?

[fastolds]

Anyone used mastercam art? I am curious how good or bad it works.

[nervis1]

I've had it for about four months, it works, does everything they say. It's very easy to use as well. Import art, create surface on same plane as art, pic loops of geometry and puff them up or down (several parameters can be controlled here), I usually move top to z-0 at this point, pick tool path, verify, ready to cut. It's been pretty bullet proof so far for me.

The only "problem" is that my machine will only scoot at 7500rpm, a high speed spindle would help to keep the cut times down with the tiny end mills or router bits you will need to use for cutting a relief.

[the_paco]

I use ArtCAM (Insignia right now) product and was planning on to upgrade to PRO but I begin to wonder about MasterCAM router products series (including Art)... I'm not completely happy about ArtCAM products right now so I wish I could get feed back about MasterCAM products to compare.

Anybody use(d) both?

[fastolds]

I am curious what mastercam art could do with a scanned drawing I have. if you get time and want to play with it, let me know.

[flinty]

To the Paco, I bought Mastercam Art instead of Artcam Pro, at this time I think I made a mistake, it costs more, and has less in the program ie: only 2 texture surfaces ( brick wall and a basket weave ) so you cannot emulate a chisel cut for example. In Artcam you can and they have others.
The help files are almost hopeless and there is no where they tell you how to create additional textures ( a feature I need). ( The help files in general are very poor).
Antother example: I want to puff up a bird in flight and I keep getting the error, " open boundaries, which need to be closed, try to find how to do that in the tutorials , I hav'nt as yet.
The other irritation is that when you buy the program it has the ability to be either mill, lathe, wire edm, router entry, router, router pro, etc.etc. so you get a ton of icons in the tool bar that when you click on them they respond with eg: "mill is not installed call your dealer for an upgrade", why don't they put a little time into the program and when you buy it ie: Router only show the icons you can use and relevant help files ??
You cannot also customise the screen and Icons to suit your style, they are where they are.
Maybe I am dumb and need to switch some setting??
but I find it very frustrating, and it does not stop there, when you go through the tutorials from the book which arrived with the program, which clearly states on the cover
" Mastercam Router Tutorial " you find that you cannot do some of the tutorials because when you order ART you seem to get an inbetween program not Router and not Router Entry and certailnly not Router Pro, so the block drills cannot be used, ( I have block drills on my router) surfaces cannot be used, nesting is geometric not true shape and you cannot use " surfaces" you can in MC Art but you cannot construct in MC Art, you construct in Mastercam and then switch to art so it is not as simple as the first reply say's.
That said, my recomendation is to get them to come to your facility, and " do" with their program what you want done. that also goes for any others, from what I have since read and tested I think that Artcam Pro is the leader in this field and MC have a lot of catching up to do and I suppose I have a lot more dollars to part with to get the Mill upgrade which can actually do surfaces ( at least I think it can).
Not trying to put you off but I wish I could go back in time and re think which program I should buy.
chris

[the_paco]

flinty,

hummm... well thank! That is alot of informations... and the kind of feed back I was looking for (details).

I notice MC is not any anyway cheaper but I was hoping for better/more...

Thanks again!