Hi,
I personally am of the same opinion, its all very well having a controller which can natively interpolate multi axis movements but myI think optimal Trajectory Planning is a more complex task than implied here
understanding is that trajectory planning is more than that.
In particular if you wish what I'd call CV (constant velocity) then successive moves must be chained together and a calculation done to blend
the moves together in some (optimal) fashion.
I used Mach3 for a year or so before upgrading to Mach4 about five years ago. Thus my experience is based on my memory of Mach3 but now many hundreds
if not thousands of hours 'hands on' with Mach4.
To the best of my knowledge the essential trajectory planner is very similar. For instance both Mach3 and Mach4 have a second order planner only. There was talk
at the time that Mach4 was developed that a third order planner could be used however it was not (as yet) adopted. Where the two differ is the means of blending moves,
and again to the best of my knowledge, Mach3 and Mach4 share similar look-ahead strategies however Mach4 has a considerably refined calculation to blend moves.
It is for instance possible to set a max deviation and other parameters that allow a user to make a trade off between tool path speed and tool path fidelity.
Not withstanding Mach4's better CV strategies my understanding is that Mach4's trajectory planner is adequate but 'entry level' by comparison to some of the established
but expensive industrial controllers.
There has been research done and code written for a more sophisticated Mach4 planner (Tempest Planner) and even some talk in recent months of introducing it. It is no
more than a module in Mach4 and so could be introduced at will without any modifications to the rest. We will wait and see.
Craig