drawing arcs

[JPowell]

Can the visual mill 6 do any design work at all, or does it just do some minor editing? I got a jpg converted into a dwg file..not using visual mill, I can't seem to get a jpg to load into visual mill. Anyhow, now I got this dwg file loaded in and it looks pretty good, but needs some tweaking. I poke around and figured out how to do some editing with trimming off some arcs that were over extended and trimming intersections that I don't want. Now I have this one arc that I need to move and I can't for the life of me figure out how! I need to take it and extend it out or somehow manipulate it. I use the extend arc feature but it does an auto extend to a location I don't want. I tried clicking to draw a line but can't seem to. Whenever I want to click a location, the stupid little square doesn't follow the mouse properly, it's like i'm in the middle of the screen with the arrow and the tiny button to begin a line or arc is bouncing around the screen everywhere but where i want it to be. The actual arc command is definitely not what I want either, because I don't want a perfect compass arc, I just want to drop three points with a line between where I can use the center point to manipulate the curve. I read the manual all day long, can't find any info. Sure can't afford to pay $150 for an hour of their time.

[DareBee]

Yes it is easily done.
Their support is not 150/hr
If you post on the MecSoft forum or send your file to support they will most likely help for free.
I suspect that the raster to vector conversion you did is not quite true or you are not working on a true Cplane. These instances would cause your snaps to not work with your geometry.
In my personal experience (if you must do cad in VM) it is best to all the Cad on the Z zero plane and then move it afterwards or secondly always make a Cplane to draw on.
Considering there is superb free cad software (such as Draftsight) why bother though.
Can't do much without the file to see why you are having issues.

[JPowell]

Ok..well I actually got success. One of their tech guys called me back. I had the grid on at the bottom and that doesn't let you snap or it is snap or something. With the grid off, everything went beautiful! I did a whole lot of editing in arcs and trimming excess lines and after everything is the way I want it to look, I got all my lines joined. It's actually all real simple when you figure out what does what when it comes to editing the lines at least.

Now I have to render it. I do not know what render even means. I assume I have to make a piece of stock too. I did make a piece of stock and it went under the picture, which looked neat. But I can't figure out how to render it, or what render even is. I want to pocket everything but the image itself, so it will just be flat but proud of oh..a piece of junk wood would be fine for now. I don't want someone to do my work for me either. But I don't mind showing what I have done so far, and maybe someone can help guide me what to do next?

oh..it won't let me upload a vcp file? how do i do that?

[DareBee]

- Stock is not a requirement to make a program, it is just something for us humans to look at.
- use the position stock tool to, well, position your stock.
- one of the easiest things with a program like this is that you work left to right through the buttons to make a new program (machine setup, import part, locate part, create stock, locate stock........last button is post(code)).
- there is no render. Unless you mean to run simulation OR to extrude your 2D into a 3D.
- upload a VCP by tricking the system. rename .vcp to .zip or .dxf AND then TELL US that you have done this so that we can rename back to vcp to make it usable.

[JPowell]

I was well under way with my first ever design. Was having extrude issues though. I would increase size cause its so small then extrude parts .1 but every time software froze up. Now computer won't boot, looks like motherboard died. That's why I've been in limbo. Hope to be back up next weekend with the pics and experiments as I learn to use it all.