Found an Old Bug
I had a case today, one one of the few times I get to use MeshCAM for a real project, where I had a metric STL file and I was using my normal Mach 3-Inch post processor. The intention all along had been that MeshCAM would have done the mm-to-inch conversion work without user intervention when saving the gcode. I was surprised when my mill tried to jog the X axis 185 inches to the right- this was obviously broken.
I ended up finding a bug that eliminated the units read from the post processor config file and just set them to match the geometry. I think this has probably been broken for a while and I’m surprised that nobody noticed this when it occurred. I assumed that more people would be working in a mixed-unit workflow but I guess I assumed wrong. Maybe they found it to be broken but just assumed this was the intended behavior. I’m always shocked when a fundamental bug goes unnoticed- especially when it means I may have spent time building a feature that nobody appears to be using.
V3 Build 5 Uploaded
I just uploaded the V3 build 5 beta to http://www.grzsoftware.com/v2dl.php . The primary fix here is the offset roughing crashes that were occurring. I can’t say for certain that the problem is gone for good but I have not been able to cause the problem to happen after I found the source of the problem.
I also made a number of performance improvements so I would appreciate any feedback you can give about these.
My favorite addition is that you can now drag any compatible file onto the window to open it. This was a simple thing that I never realized was missing.
I also just realized that I think I forgot to mention the new “Save Job” command has been added under the File menu. You can try it and verify that it works for you but don’t be surprised if the files you save cannot be opened in the next release or two. This is still beta software and there may be a bug that requires a file format change. I don’t expect any changes but it could happen. This command saves the STL, stock, retract and max depth, and any supports in one file. This is one that people have been asking for and I’m glad it finally made it in there.
Next Release Soon
I think I found the bug that has been holding back my next release. Some users may have seen crashing when using certain models with the new offset roughing. The crashes were repeatable but would come and go as the machining parameters were changed. The problem was in the third-party library I’ve been using but it was my fault- I changed a parameter (a floating point epsilon for the programmers out there) with the intention of making everything more robust. I obviously failed and have now put the parameter value closer to where it should be. Since I didn’t write the code I have had to spend time to learn about its behavior when given the complicated real-world data that MeshCAM generates. Overall it has still been better than writing in on my own but it’s not as drag-and-drop as I would have liked.