How do you determine order of cuts?

[CRWConstruction]

We're running visualmill 5.0 in our shop. We know how to determine the starting point of an object to but how do we determine which object it starts with and order it follows from there? We cut out all the pieces of a cabinet from large sheets of material and right now we're wasting a lot of time because it will cut out in the piece out in the middle of our sheet, then the piece at the far end followed by a piece at the beginning of the sheet, etc. We'd like to know how you set it to cut the piece closest to x0y0 then move to the next closest piece to it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Prboz]

did you get a reply for this?

I have the same problem.

Regards

[scudzuki]

Create a seperate MOP for each object and order them however you like.

Joe

[chmillman]

We'd like to know how you set it to cut the piece closest to x0y0 then move to the next closest piece to it.

This is normally called sorting and is available in Visual Mill for some operations - originally only drilling - and more recently profiling, pocketing and engraving. Problem is, I do not know if all of them are available in VM5, some might have been added in VM6...

In order to do this at all, you need to set an environment variable - a procedure that seems taken right out of Windows 3.1 - but it's not difficult. How to get to the dialog that allows you to set the variable is different depending on which system you have. For XP, look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310519

The environment variables available for Visual Mill are and some discussion on them can be found here: http://www.mecsoft.com/phpbb/viewtop...ht=environment

What you want is to add the variable VMILL_SORT_PROFILES and give it a value of 1.

It's archaic, I know, but maybe it will help if you're doing primarily profiling which I seem to recall could be sorted in VM5. If you're doing pocketing, I think you may need VM 6...

Added: just to be clear - setting this environment variable does not actually add a "sorting" tab to your machining operations in VM5 - what it does is try to generate a nearest neighbor order automatically - but you will have no control over how the sorting takes place. for some real control on how the sorting happens, you WILL need to have VM6, where the machining operations that have it (like profiling and pocketing) now have a separate tab with several choices for sorting method - like nearest neighbor, in x direction first, in y first, etc. as well as a choice of start point.

--ch

[tacdriver]

Sorting tab - it's available in all of the operations in VM6 and will fix the problems you are describing. Also, picking the regions in the order you want them cut will achieve the same thing, from what I can tell.

I've never set any environment variables, just use the "shortest distance" sort option and it will take care of the rest, but I am using VM6. Upgrade time!