A new Spacing option has been added to Geometry - Text. This parameter adds or subtracts space between the letters, when creating machinable text. Positive values add additional space between the letters, and negative values subtract space between letters. The Spacing option allows you to manually adjust the text length to meet your needs.

The default placement workplane when opening CAD data can now be controlled from within SmartCAM. A new CAD Import Destination Plane option in the Data Translation Options category of the new Utility - Options dialog box allows any of the standard default workplanes to be specified. This option is particularly valuable to turning users that receive 2D drawings in the XY plane, since they can now be defaulted to open in the ZX turning workplane.

A new checkbox option added to File - Merge called Import CAD Data to Active Plane allows CAD data to be translated to the currently active workplane on merge. When not enabled, CAD data will be imported to the default workplane (previous behavior).

CAD data translation import/export has been updated to support the 2012 version of DXF and DWG CAD model files. New optional configuration file settings can control whether Paper Space, Model Space, or both are imported from the DXF/DWG files. Additionally, it is also now possible to configure whether DXF/DWG Block Instances are imported onto the layer of the original block or the layer associated with the block Instance.

Previously, when using Nibbled or Filled, ShowPath would calculate the tool display locations for the entire element and then display the positions all at once. This sometimes made it difficult to tell which direction the tool was moving. ShowPath now displays the tool locations individually along the length of the element. Also, ShowPath now responds to speed changes more quickly.

The group selection order, used by the Order Path - Seq Move function when the By Group Selection Sequence option is selected, has been improved so it is now maintained whenever possible throughout all SmartCAM functions. Previously functions that would modify geometry such as transformations or geometry editing commands would not maintain the selection order.

The behavior of the Color checkbox on the Planner and Element Data dialog boxed has changed. When the option is enabled, list items are displayed in their assigned color and the color of the list's background changes to match the color of the graphics view. When the Color option is disabled, the lists will show black text on a white background.

New macro functions have been added, which can be used to find out which layers, steps, and tools have been defined in the active process model. These functions return an integer array, containing the layer, step, and tool numbers of all the layers/steps/tools defined in the active process model.

• ALL_LAYERS() returns a list of all the defined layers.
• ALL_STEPS() returns a list of all the defined steps.
• ALL_TOOLS() returns a list of all the defined tools. This function is for milling, fabrication, and EDM.
• ALL_TUR_TOOL(turrert #) returns a list of all the tools defined for a given turret. This function is for turning applications.

Additionally, a new element property macro function applicable to container elements has been added.

• I=CCNT(elmt) returns the number of elements inside a specified container element.

The TO_UPPER and TO_LOWER macro functions are now available for use in Code Generation. These functions provide a convenient method for formatting text strings for output in code. A common use case would be to force step or tool descriptions to upper case as shown in the following example. This allows the description to be entered in the step or tool using an easier to read mixed case, but still be output in upper case for controls that require that.

#EVAL(#S1=TO_UPPER(jos_str(tl_desc)))

TOOL DESC = #S1