Does WorkNC have a future?

[Dan B]

I think Hexagon has not done a good job with WorkNC. I know someone that requested a demo and it took 2 years for a reply. Of course at that point interest was long gone. Training material is 4 years old when requesting the latest. They add new functionality occasionally but do a piss poor job of documenting it. Still no proper forum (no offense to CNCZone). For the amount of money paid in maintenance every year we expect more. If you drop your maintenance your processing speed slows down substantially, and your amount of windows is reduced to one. I get the notion of adding some extras for those that continue with their maintenance, but the performance of a product you spent a lot of money on shouldn't be considered an "extra". Oh and if you "purchased" the simultaneous module, you can't have it anymore if you don't continue with maintenance. And here we are almost in 2022 and still no API.

So when looking forward for growth over the next 5 years, can we honestly say that WorkNC can be a part of that?

Any other WorkNC users want to chime in and set me straight? Maybe I'm just looking at this wrong?

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[Dan B]

Guess I'm not wrong.

[Dan B]

A year later and still waiting for someone from WorkNC to tell me I have it all wrong.

[Dan B]

I will say one thing. The more we use PowerMill the better WorkNC looks.

[deadlykitten]

hy dan i don't know what is with you and work-nc i mean i understand you raise it up in 2021, but why do you still hang on to it ?

The more we use PowerMill the better WorkNC looks

aren't powermill and worknc competitors ?

i also talk alone in some longevive threads, so ... can i help you ?

as for api, are you after some process definitions, model automatizations ? i can solve incompatibilites between cam and cnc without learning the postprocessor, but simply changing the syntaxes as long as there is generic code .... this is downstream, as for upper stream, i think i can implement automatization without api; should work for simple stuff, but maybe there is another method, like using another application, that simply creates a file in the format that is needed

remembering your name, i checked one reply of yours from an old thread, and you can do a large pallete of things, at least larger than the avergage user

is there something that should be done ? kindly

[Dan B]

I hoped this post would open a dialogue about the future of WorkNC with someone from Hexagon. Why do that here? There's no official WorkNC forum where a person can have these kind of discussions with someone from the "head office". In the past, when Sescoi developed WorkNC there were people that you could converse with on a public forum. I started using WorkNC almost 30 years ago, so I am well versed in what was, and what is now in the WorkNC world. WorkNC is a good product. Actually, I would say it's a great product. If Bruno hadn't retired and sold Sescoi to Vero, only to be swallowed up shortly after by the bigger fish Hexagon, I think things would be a lot different today. The product would still be very good, but then so would the support.

As for the need for an API we are doing some groundbreaking work on fully autonomous programming. It would not have pleased us more if we could have done this using WorkNC as the "engine". But we couldn't, thereby forcing us to PowerMill. We already have a patent pending on this project, and hope to have that wrapped up with a full patent within the next few weeks. So how is PowerMill? I can't speak for older versions, but PowerMill 2023 is a broken product. So many things don't work as they should. But for our project we are leveraging the API so we can work around a lot of these issues. It's not always easy to do, but we are getting by. So for us, PowerMill's strong points are the API and the simultaneous toolpaths (much much easier to use than WorkNC). We originally planned a much larger roll out to the shop floor programmers, but we've pulled back on that plan. For us, and for our product, WorkNC runs circles around PowerMill. I will say one thing though, our PowerMill reseller has been outstanding. They feel our pain and are doing everything within their power to help. The one thing I really needed, suspending our subscription until the bugs have been solved, they were not able to do. But there's a seldom addressed benefit of a subscription. It doesn't have to be renewed.

Anyway, thanks for commenting. I do get tired of talking to myself.

[deadlykitten]

hy dan i think there where some really good old days of worknc, and maybe having it sold away, afected its developemtn team, maybe things go sideways more or less

maybe Bruno had some reasons to sold it ?! don't know, i only reply from what i read from you, i am not part of it

30 years is sometime, like ennough time for someone that like something, to understand it deeper and develop it

having to use powermill api instead of work nc, may be, at least at initial stage, a drawback ... i don't say powermill is better than worknc or viceversa, but i reffer to having to switch the tools that you where used to, only to keep folowing a task, may make one feel ... for example, i am used to okuma machines, and i have a little cat, and i live in a tree i wouldn't switch to fanuc + dog + cave; it's not me

on the other side, working with api, or with work nc, may only require a 'gate-in', thus you don't actually target the entire code, but only need a specialized tool to sent your comands through; like if you have done it with worknc, now powermill, you could 'transfer' ( if needed ) to another software

the more core functions you can target, the better the final idea, and seeing this :

So for us, PowerMill's strong points are the API and the simultaneous toolpaths (much much easier to use than WorkNC). We originally planned a much larger roll out to the shop floor programmers, but we've pulled back on that plan

PowerMill 2023 is a broken product

i believe you hit into a limitation ( software or team ), and needed to take one step back. I hope you will be able to cross over it, and deliver the thing as you wish. But even a truncated product may still be enough for now and do it better in the future ?

development teams effort get lower after initial releases, there is less need for them, and in time, there is no more that persons that knows and can modify on demand; and even if there may be another 'open' software, is not easy to switch teams ... depends how complex your product is

we are doing some groundbreaking work on fully autonomous programming

i would realy apreciate to know such functionalities, more about your work, if there is some info for the general public / kindly

ps : never heard of hexagon, just checked it, and seems they are pretty big ... like big enough to care, or not at all, about many things

[Dan B]

never heard of hexagon, just checked it, and seems they are pretty big ... like big enough to care, or not at all, about many things

I guess that really sums up my first post. If Hexagon would put a little effort into WorkNC it would go a long way. Like some current training material? Maybe a dedicated forum? They are big enough to do this if they wanted to.

[burs]

I think Hexagon has not done a good job with WorkNC. I know someone that requested a demo and it took 2 years for a reply. Of course at that point interest was long gone. Training material is 4 years old when requesting the latest. They add new functionality occasionally but do a piss poor job of documenting it. Still no proper forum (no offense to CNCZone). For the amount of money paid in maintenance every year we expect more. If you drop your maintenance your processing speed slows down substantially, and your amount of windows is reduced to one. I get the notion of adding some extras for those that continue with their maintenance, but the performance of a product you spent a lot of money on shouldn't be considered an "extra". Oh and if you "purchased" the simultaneous module, you can't have it anymore if you don't continue with maintenance. And here we are almost in 2022 and still no API.

So when looking forward for growth over the next 5 years, can we honestly say that WorkNC can be a part of that?

Any other WorkNC users want to chime in and set me straight? Maybe I'm just looking at this wrong?

I think it's about time that the WorkNC forum on CNCzone slowly said goodbye (again). Unfortunately, there is not much activity in this forum here.

[Dan B]

Better take the Rhino forum down too. There hasn't been a new post in 13 months. Probably the Cadkey forum too. MeshCAM might as well go to. It's been 13 months without a post. Is lack of activity really the reason to delete forums?

[burs]

Better take the Rhino forum down too. There hasn't been a new post in 13 months. Probably the Cadkey forum too. MeshCAM might as well go to. It's been 13 months without a post. Is lack of activity really the reason to delete forums?

thanks for the hint, I'll decide later what to do with the other forums. The posts of this won´t be deleted, just moved to another (parent) forum.
There have been frequent requests to reduce the number of forums on CNCzone a bit to make it more manageable. Recently, some have already disappeared without anyone seeming to mind much.

[RaderSidetrack]

I'm going to point out here that even though the threads in WorkNC forum would be consolidated into the parent forum, those threads are still readily located by "Search". .

And, to make a point, at the time of this post, the WorkNC forum is still a separate sub-forum. But not all relevant threads are located in the WorkNC forum, for instance:
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/uncat...rum-posts.html

... which is in the "Uncategorized" forum Burs mentioned. (See post #4 at that link.)

The point is that to get a true picture of WorkNC related posts at CNCZone, one would need to do a Search anyway.

[Dan B]

There have been frequent requests to reduce the number of forums on CNCzone a bit to make it more manageable. Recently, some have already disappeared without anyone seeming to mind much.

With regard to Rhino, I think the discourse site gets all of the traffic. It's where the developers and most experienced users communicate. I would think that's why there isn't much traffic here. I don't know about the others, but they do seem pretty dead. I don't think it would matter much if the WorkNC forum disappeared. If users are looking for less clutter with all the forums this would be a good place to make the cut. I would also think that the PowerMill forum is lightly used because of the proliferation of Autodesk forums. That's were people will go for most discussions related to PowerMill.

[burs]

Better take the Rhino forum down too. There hasn't been a new post in 13 months. Probably the Cadkey forum too. MeshCAM might as well go to. It's been 13 months without a post. Is lack of activity really the reason to delete forums?

'CadKey' and 'Meshcam' have now been closed too. From time to time I will also close other inactive forums.