A quick question?

[Bartman]

hello all,

Just wondering if there is a way to change the positioning on the axis in a mdel?

I have found that I can convert solid works to mastercam, but when I import the solidworks model, the axis are in the wrong places.

Any ways, if any body can point me in the right direction I would appreaciate it.

Bartman

[ARB]

Do you mean part orientation?
I have found that with Gibbs I need to have my SW part such that the face that I want to be the "top" of the part for machining has to be the front in SW. Mastercam I assume imports a part file with the planes associated a certain way each time like Gibbs.

HTH.

Later

ARB

[jgro]

Create a coordinate system in SolidWorks the way you want it oriented in Mastercam. When you do a "save as" and pick the file format that you want, select the options button down in the lower right corner. In that menu, change your output coordinate sytem from -default- to the one that you created.

jgro

[dmealer]

Hello,
ARB is correct. When you draw in Solidworks, you want your orintation the same as if you were in Mastercam. When you make your model, look at the Triad in the lower left hand corner of your screen. You should be looking down the Z axis. Also, if you export as a IGES, I have found it quite usefull to turn on the B Splines option in the save as options dialouge box after you choose save as IGES. You can also instruct Solidworks to export the sufaces in a MasterCam format in the same dialouge box. When I tell Mastercam to import the IGES, I tell it to read the XYZ's of the original file. Hope this helps!!!!!
Dalen

[ghyman]

To change the orientation of the axes on a model:

1. select one of the 'view' buttons to position the model normal to the left/top/front/etc view.
2. hit the space bar
3. in the box that opens up, select the orientation that you want the current view to represent
4. select "update axes"

example... if the 'top' view of your model needs to be rotated to make it the 'left' view
click the 'top' view button, hit space, select 'left', and update.

you may need to do this twice... updating the axes may give you the desired rotation, but one of the perpendicular axes may end up being 90° off (e.g. when 'top' is moved to 'left', then 'front' may be rotated to the new 'top')

You can also update all axes to be normal to a face on your model that is not parallel to any of the three 'normal' axes. select that face on your model, and click 'normal to', then go through the orientation (space bar) menu.

this will rotate your model to the X/Y/Z orientation your cam system expects.

I played the same orientation game with smartcam; this took care of it for me!