Doug et. al.
My personal opinion is that a Cam program is a Cam program, a Cad program is a Cad program, and a controller is a controller. I don't think an excellent control program like Mach2-n should be mucked up with cam functions at all. If you want a different order to your dxf vectors, then run it through a Cam program. How many different CAD/CAM programs are there currently in existence and none of them does every thing everyone wants. Mach2, for what it does, is a fantastic control program. Keep it simple, keep it pure and get rid of all the CAM functions.
Flame suit on
Bring on the hate mail.
Hugh
Hi Art:
A while ago I suggested you load a DXF file with certain options.
Am I to assume (from the above) that you can now optionally turn only
certain (entire) layers on? For example, one layer might be the
curvey surface of an object, and another might be a drill layer,
a third layer might be only a 'helper' layer to draw construction objects.
All of these layers should be treated differently.
Also, you'd like to let it know which was a 'drill' layer
(or 'drill' element, ie an up-and-down movement, not 'follow the
contour' movement). The 'helper' layer(s) can be ignored (unless
perhaps if you had a 'helper' layer which had your raw stock outline).
I also suggested that each DXF 'element' in a complicated drawing
could be turned on manually, and the ORDER and DIRECTION (and DEPTH)
of the tool could be governed by that manual selection.
Here is why: suppose you have a DXF with your complete part all on one
layer, but right now you just want to mill the outside contour. Perhaps
you'd want to start near the edge of the material (this is not necessarily
how the DXF was drawn in the first place) and proceed in a certain direction
(ie choice of upmilling or downmilling).
By picking the segments you want, in the order you want, you'd get
maximum control over the toolpath.
Have you given that idea any further consideration?
Who else thinks this is a good idea?
Doug Fortune
