View Selection Dialog Box Questions

[thebowman]

First let me say that I've used the View Manager in X2-X4 for almost everything with no problems. Despite not having any problems I'd like to understand more about certain aspects of Mastercam that exist and I don't use. One of the areas I'd like a better understanding of is the View Selection Dialog box that can be raised by clicking on the Planes Button on Status Bar and selecting Named Views. When you hit the Select View Arrow at the bottom of the View Selection Dialog Box a bunch of difficult to see gnomon's appear that represent icons for your named views. You're then suppose to select the one you want.

My questions are as follows:

Does anyone use (still use) this approach?

What benefit does it have?


If you're still following along I also don't get the following which is from the Mastercam help:

"After selecting the desired view, you can choose whether or not you want to reset the origin to the new view's origin. If you choose not to, you will only change the orientation of the plane.

When this happens, Mastercam actually creates a new temporary view, with the orientation of the new plane and the origin of the old one, but does not automatically add it to the view list. The graphics window displays Not Saved for the selected plane to show this.

To add it to the view catalog so that it is listed in the View Manager or so that it can be selected directly in this dialog box, choose Save from the Status Bar Menu."

My questions is why would you want Mastercam to not automatically save this view? When would you need to set a Cplane and but not want to save it?

[Donkey Hotey]

Originally Posted by thebowman My questions is why would you want Mastercam to not automatically save this view? When would you need to set a Cplane and but not want to save it?

I'd like to see some other discussion so, I'm going to add my $0.02 and see. Why would you want a temporary view like that? For 3D construction. You may want to draw features on a bunch of different part faces but, don't intend to use any of them for future tool paths. You could set the plane, use it for construction, and have it go away when you're done using it.

That's what I know from a number of other CAD systems that I used to teach. I actually didn't realize Mastercam could do that (I don't do much modeling in Mastercam). I'm going to go poke around in there and see how that works. I've been creating temp planes, then going back and deleting them when I was done with construction.

[thebowman]

Originally Posted by Donkey Hotey I'd like to see some other discussion so, I'm going to add my $0.02 and see. Why would you want a temporary view like that? For 3D construction. You may want to draw features on a bunch of different part faces but, don't intend to use any of them for future tool paths. You could set the plane, use it for construction, and have it go away when you're done using it. That's what I know from a number of other CAD systems that I used to teach. I actually didn't realize Mastercam could do that (I don't do much modeling in Mastercam). I'm going to go poke around in there and see how that works. I've been creating temp planes, then going back and deleting them when I was done with construction.

Thanks for you post, Greg. I never thought of that. Makes perfect sense now that you mention it.

While I like the Mastercam WCS / Construction Planes / Gviews / Tool Planes approach to programming I don't particularly like or fully understand what seems like many different approaches to Mastercam's user interface for Views and Planes.

The users interface appears to me to be a combination of an old approach that wasn't removed so that older, cranky, miserable Mastercam users didn't whine and a new user interface (the View Manager) that puts everything in one place but unfortunately is still modal (you have to close the View Manager rather than leave it open like you can with the Level Manager).

I guess I'm trying to understand all the different approaches and tools in Mastercam for Views and Planes so I can make myself as efficient as possible.

No doubt by the time I do this X5 will redo what I suspect needs to be redone.

[thebowman]

Something else related that I can't quite figure out. I was working on a 4th axis part today. Just an example from the Mastercam Handbook Volume 1 I was playing with. Instead of doing a Transform I decided to create Planes on the other 5 sides of this cylindrical part and copy and paste the original pocket operation at A0. I create all the new Planes for the other five faces first. No problem. I then edited each operation to use the new Construction Planes and Tool Planes. No problem. I then set the Plane to the face I wanted and Chained the pocket geometry. For some reason Mastercam created 3 new planes in the View Manager every time I tried to Chain a different face

???

I ended up deleting all these new Planes and the part solid cut Verifies and Backplots just fine. What causes these Planes to be created when I go to Chain on different faces of the part? Also, Even though I'm only using 1 WCS (Top) it doesn't post out with a Fixture offset (G54). I'm using the generic Haas 4 axis VMC post that comes with Mastercam. If need be I can post the file I'm having problems with.