Can any cam system do this?

I'll keep looking for the switch, but i'm yet to find it on any system iv'e ran.

Cimatron, piece of cake. Many options for views. View reset to current coordinate system, Or rename top,front,side or set to screen view or view rotate(ie 90deg from current), or just make new veiw/name at any zoom ratio. Tons of view things for user to play with. Immediately available at any time, during any function with 1 mouse click. FYI masterascam guys: NEVER move/rotate your part from the coordinate system it was imported at. Makes updates/concurrent engineering a snap. The only time this does not work, is when the ass wipe who exports the new model out of his system, chooses a new coordinate system for export, dumb ass. Had one come in that was .010" off. Bastdard! Talk about a fuckup waiting to happen. Oh well, good luck with that masterscamers.

Life is good when your driving a Ferrari with a bunch of VW's on your tail :-)

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A lot of them do Vinny. You just toggle the view relationship between Absolute and Relative. Then the system shows your pert relative to the current, active coordinate system. It's a switch setting.

The toggle is in a goofy tool bar thingy in Vero and Catia that's at the bottom of the screen. It's like an inverted radio button and the text changes when you click on it. Bill can probably tell you where it is in UG. You can even do this in MasterCam.

Mastercam: Gview =3D Tplane

It's one of the hot-keys on my Space Pilot.

worknc allows easy workplane creation on the part as opposed to the assembly's planes. any surface or axis you want to reference. fairly solid cutting path creation too.

Yes it has been funny watching you over the past few months with your beginner problems and issues with MasterCAM, particularly your clueless rants about chaining, exporting tool library, spreadsheets, MasterCAM post processors, etc. and ALL THESE years you the Energizer Dummy have been posing as a MasterCAM EXPERT.......LOL.....

I could use an app that will convert xy cordinates into xc if you know of any I appreciate let me know.

In Gibbs you right click on a face and select "align to CS". Jerry

That's kinda creepy.

Vinny,

Maybe I'm missing something here but aren't you bringing in the part as an assembly? NEVER PROGRAM ON THE ACTUAL MODELS! Because you're "viewing in" the model, they can move the originals all over town if they want. Your view of it in your file never changes. I've never had to associate a view to a feature in NX.

My general flow is:

1. Create new empty part file for cam (actually I have templates with some operations already nailed down).

1. Bring in in the part I'm machining (it can of coarse be another assembly - like a mold) as an assembly item. Our shop's process is if it's an NX file from the customer, we point right to that file. If not, we create an NX model of the part which we then point to. The customer files are in a read only folder so we can't hose them. If we get an updated model we put it in a new folder and rename the old one so if I work on the nc program after that, the assembly load will bomb telling me there's an update to replace with. Very good system for us.

2. Bring in stock or create it then export as assembly. The beauty of this step is many times, our lathe programmer creates the revolved solids for his turning op. I just point to his file and use it for my initial stock. If he changes something - mine will update.

1. Bring in fixtures. Or create the fixture in the cam file then export the models back out as an assembly to possibly be used on another project. Remember, you can work on multiple solids in one part file THEN export them as assembly items later. Hell, you can even leave them in (but that's tacky).

2. Create assembly constraints for the whole mess and voila!

1. Start programming.

This process goes very quick by the way so if someone says, "I didn't create an assembly because I was in a hurry...", that's a load of crap.

Also, if you really need to use surfaces of the model for geometry creation - such as project curve or offset face - use Wave Linked geometry to extract those features. The linked stuff stays associated to the original model like glue. Hell, you can even Wave Link the whole solid if you need it then hide the original.

-- Bill

Oh yea. The other reason not to get caught up on views assigned to faces etc... Drafting does not like them so much. Use assemblies and your world is cool. I create setup sheets in my cam files as well so I stick with normal views.

? An assembly? frig, my head is gonna explode from this stuff. Ok, I'm milling up some blocks of steel, 1" x 2" , some holes, chamfers, squared up. So I make a copy of a file that's just a part file made by the designers and I change the name a little and use that copy. I add MFG onto the end. Now I cant hurt nothing ...right? Whats the difference between a part file and an assembly file, they are both .prt? there's no going into assembly like going into design, assembly is running all the time? It's like everything is an assembly anyway?

Wholly s*it...lol I just thought of something.... When I work on electrode models, sometimes I have to edit them, push walls back, etc... Thats ok. But tonight I edited some steel components. I chamfered them, and I cut a wall away that was drawn on the print. Did it make design prints up the pipeline go out of date, and need regenerated? lol doh!

Should be:

Vinny gets no free pass. :>)

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

I work with alot of Catia files that are made in "Aircraft coordinates"...usually things like wing spars & such. Ya import the things in to Mastercam & they are way the f*ck out in left field. Flat faces are pretty much non-existent. What I usually do is create a few lines from the high & low point of the model & rotate & translate the thing to where I want the origin. Takes a minute or 2...but not long. One of our current projects is rebuilding the wing spars for the A-10 Warthog.....Solid models for these do not exist.....nor is there any more forgings....so we do a solid hog out. Ya get a loft chart and start keying in points....& they are all done in aircraft coordinates. How the f*ck they actually came up with all of these points in '72 is beyond me. Some of this stuff took me a week to model up...and 2 days to machine out. Government work does pay well tho...

Refresh my memory, please. If I remember right in Gibbscam once you create a CS you can't delete it? If I remember right you can reorder CS's and I think you can rename a CS in Gibbscam.

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

You can delete CS. If there is a geometry that belongs to it gibbs will ask you if you want to move it or loose it. You can also rename it or change it by rotating or moving it. Jerry

Refresh my memory, please. If I remember right in Gibbscam once you create a CS you can't delete it? If I remember right you can reorder CS's and I think you can rename a CS in Gibbscam.

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Must have been an old limitaton of Gibbscam that I remember.

Thanks,

Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Assemblies: This is THE major thing you need to learn. It's what sets this system apart from most cam only systems. You don't make copies of the designers files...

1. You create an empty part file.
2. You then bring in "view in" the designers part "as an assembly component".

You can now work on YOUR part YET it lives in the designers part file. Read up on Assemblies.

Part files can be a single parts or assemblies, or both. Example: In many shops the drawings are created in a standalone part file that the designers model is viewed in as an assembly component. It's not like Solidworks where you have .asm files. NX is open in that regard.

That's fine. Viewed in as an assembly component, you can then create a "Linked Body" of the solid (then hide the original). You now can modify the "Linked Body" of the electrode as needed yet it's associative to the designers part file. Does this start to make sense?

If you edited the designers model part file directly and is being used for an downstream drawing or assembly... Yes you've affected them. Are the other programmers using assemblies?

-- Bill