Mastercam NewsFlash March 2008

Monster Day at CNC Software

CNC Software had a special visitor at the corporate office a few weeks ago! Racesource’s Pablo Huffaker stopped by and brought along a couple of friends – Gravedigger and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle! Pablo is a Mastercam user and was the celebrity judge during our recent Educational “Innovator of the Future” contest.

The guys from Racesource unload the Gravedigger, bringing work at CNC Software to a temporary halt, or at least a slowdown. Who can resist a monster truck?

Mastercam at Westec 2008

If you are going to be in the Los Angeles area, March 31 – April 3, please stop by booth # 3258 at the Westec show to see Mastercam’s latest developments.

CNC Software will be showing in-depth Mastercam presentations as well as previewing our new Mastercam in SolidWorks product and Mastercam’s Feature Based Machining (FBM). (Some presentations will be in Spanish). Stop by and learn how Mastercam can keep your shop ahead of the competition.

Feature Based Machining (FBM) – Learn how FBM can automate your machining process by introducing dramatic speed improvements and significant reductions in programming time. See how FBM can automatically evaluate a part and program any pockets, contours, bosses, and drilling routines with minimal input.

Mastercam in SolidWorks – Mastercam in SolidWorks is fully integrated CAM that runs seamlessly in SolidWorks. If you are a SolidWorks user, stop by and see how to program your parts directly in SolidWorks using Mastercam’s industry-leading toolpaths and machining strategies.

These in-depth presentations will be running all day, every day, so stop by the booth when you get a moment and see what new developments Mastercam has to offer.

The NextEngine Desktop 3D Scanner

NextEngine, a Mastercam 3rd Party Partner, has a desktop 3D scanner that can measure 50,000 points per second and quickly create toolpaths from 3D models to speed up your manufacturing workflow.

NextEngine’s Desktop 3D Scanner, with multi-laser precision, now makes it practical to scan complex 3D shapes or hand-sculpted prototypes and bring detailed geometry and design content into Mastercam. The scanner can create mesh, surface, and parametric solid file types.

For more information on the NextEnginer scanner, please visit https://www.nextengine.com/indexSecure.htm.

Are There Shortcuts for Selecting Entities?

The General Selection ribbon bar lets you choose from several different selection methods:

You can also activate any of these selection modes quickly from the keyboard:

• Right- and left-click mouse selection methods — If you left-click to choose a selection mode in the drop-down list, the mode is active for only a single selection. After you make this selection, the standard selection mode is reactivated. But if you right-click to choose a selection mode, the selection mode stays "locked" until you reset it by choosing the standard selection button.
• Double-click to end selection — This technique lets you keep your hand on the mouse more continuously and reduces the number of times you have to press [Enter]. You can start a function like Xform, Translate without doing pre-selection, window the entities you want, and double-click to complete your selection. Or, for a function like Join Entities where you can select multiple entities, just double-click on the last entity and the join is completed. If you forget to double-click on the last entity you selected, double-click in an empty area of the screen to end your selection.
• Chain select — Hold the [Shift] key and select anywhere on the blue chain to select all contiguous entities. Select a partial chain by pressing [Shift + Click] on the entity you want to end with.
• Window select — Just click anywhere on the screen that is not an entity and drag a window around the entities you want to select.
• Single select — Select the magenta line by just clicking it with the left mouse button.
• Area select — Hold the [Shift] key and click in an open area of a closed chain (for example, inside a pocket).
• Vector select — Hold down the [Alt] key and draw a vector through the red lines near the red scissors. Any entity the vector passes through will be selected.

For more Mastercam Tech Tips, please visit www.mastercam.com/support/techtips.

www.mastercam.com