Surface Angle Limits
I get two questions over and over: “What is the surface angle limit?” and “Parallel finish leaves ragged edges, what can I do?” Each question is really the answer to the other but it’s something I’ve had a lot of trouble communicating. Here’s my latest attempt complete with pictures… A Simple Geometry Below is a simple geometry that I’ve loaded into MeshCAM: As you can see, it’s a very simple sphere but it has two very important characteristics that can be used to...
read moreHow to Pick a Program Zero
New users frequently ask questions about how to set a program zero for a toolpath. Most will just accept the defaults and see what happens. Luckily, the default program zero in MeshCAM is very safe, and most users begin with very forgiving jobs, so everything usually works out fine. Once you get a few jobs done and get a better understanding of the process there are real benefits to picking the right program zero for a job. My one caveat for this post is that it doesn’t apply equally to everyone; if you have a big machining center with an...
read moreMarch 2011 Update
The latest updates have been mainly been bug fixes as I try to “complete” V4 so I can take a break and then start V5. The bug reports have been slowing down so I think the trend is heading in the right direction. I’ve been getting more and more people who are running against the 2GB memory limit imposed on 32bit Windows programs. Most of the time this is a problem with the settings they’ve chosen but there are a few people who are looking to do really big work with MeshCAM. Since I had been planning to add a 64...
read moreG-Wizard Integration
I just uploaded a new build with a couple of significant changes to http://www.grzsoftware.com/v2dl.php . First, small bitmaps will no longer be “optimized” for machining. This optimization was used to reduce machine time and it works well unless you use low-resolution bitmaps. Now, if you have a bitmap with an edge resolution less than 200, no optimization will be used. Second, the parallel finish layout has been optimized to greatly speed it up. Most users will never notice unless they are using very small stepovers. If...
read moreLinux CNC with MeshCAM
Astute website watchers may have noted the page I added, Linux CNC . I’ve spent some time with the latest Ubuntu/EMC2 distribution from linuxcnc.org and I can report that MeshCAM works well on that OS using Wine, the Windows emulator included in the distribution. A MeshCAM user, Eddie F, contributed that page to help the community and it finally convinced me to give it a try. I had always heard rumors that it worked well but I remember Wine being flakey many years ago and I never bother to try it. I found that MeshCAM worked perfectly...
read moreVersion 4 Build 36
I’m uploading Build 36 now and it has a couple of small fixes. First, it fixes some rendering problems that were introduced with the ortho projection in the last release. Two, Richard in Germany sent me another file that caused a problem with the toolpaths. There was a potential for a nearly-vertical triangle to cause spikes in the toolpaths. I think I fixed it but you’ll want to be very careful in this release to make sure I didn’t cause any side effects. Let me know what you think.
read moreHow to Disable Edge Rendering
I got my first complaint about the new edge rendering today and was asked to add a way to disable it in the next release. If you don’t like the edge rendering you can disable it now by creating a file called init.lua in c:\program files\meshcam4\scritps with the following line in it: parameters.ui.SetShowCreaseEdges(false) The init.lua file will be executed every time MeshCAM starts and that function call will disable the rendering. If you just wanted a quick way to turn it off occasionally, you can save this file...
read moreBetter 3D Rendering
A couple of users have made me aware of a new problem I’ve created with the Define Region command- if you have many parallel surfaces that are offset in the Z dimension they all blend together when you view them from above. This makes it very difficult to accurately place the machine region where you want it. I am uploading a new build that has added code to detect sharp edges and draw them separately. The effect can be seen below: First, note the missing edge below: The new code adds a line like...
read moreTwo Releases in One Day
Just uploaded my second release today to fix the remaining jags in the arc connections. The fit should be more accurate than before. I have a couple of more things to verify and then I can finalize the UI and ship it. Let me know what you find.
read moreWaterline Update
I’ve been getting complaints from users that the waterline toolpaths cause the program to lockup lately. I haven’t been able to repeat it on my machine until I get an email from Florian today. Something he said jogged my brain a bit and I realized that the problem was with the new multicore waterline code. Single core machines would freeze but machines with more than one core would work fine. I just posted an update that seems to fix it in my testing. If you have had the freezes then please let me know if this fixes...
read more