Stitching Surfaces into Solids - New in V14.5 - Edit--Surface Edit--Stitch will attempt to stitch
surfaces in the active group into one or more solids. Surfaces that are adjacent to one another with coincident
edges and vertices will be stitched into a solid. Once the open surfaces are converted into solids, all of the
SmartCAM Create--From Solid functionality, and the new surface selection features described below, can be used.
Surface Selection Improvements - New in V14.5 -
New options on the RMB (right-mouse button menu) and group toolbar are available to help select surfaces on a
solid. After selecting one surface, the bottom of a pocket perhaps, use "Add Adjacent Surfaces" to pick all
surfaces that share an edge with the selected surfaces.
Use "Add Tangent Surfaces" to pick all surfaces that are tangent to the selected surfaces. These commands can
be used multiple times, to grow the surface selection set.
"Seek Tangent Surfaces" will find all tangent surfaces related to the current surface selection set and automatically
keep growing the selections, finding all tangent surfaces, until there are no more tangent surfaces to locate.
The option "Include Split Surfaces" can be enabled or disabled on the RMB menu or the group toolbar. This option is
used when picking revolved features, such as cylinders, cones, and toroids which have been "split" into multiple
surfaces. When this option is enabled and you pick one surface of the feature, the related surface is also picked.
This is very useful when picking holes or turned part geometry. When disabled, only the one side of the split feature
is picked.
Unwrap 3D Curves - New in V14.5 -
Unwrap Curve allows 3D cylindrical curves extracted from wrapped features on a surface or solid model to be unwrapped
into a plane parallel to the active workplane and tangent to the top of the cylinder. The unwrapped curves can then be
used to develop toolpath to machine the wrapped feature, and the existing Wrap function used to convert the toolpath
back into a 4th axis wrapped plane.
Z-Level / ProfTop / Clear - Surface Point Picking - New in V14.5 -
The insert bar Level, Prof Top, and Clear fields, as well as any panel Z-coordinate field, can be set by picking a
point anywhere on a surface. In free-coordinate input mode, when picking a coordinate point a "ray" is projected
along the current view's Z-axis, through the center of the cursor to the surface. Where the "ray" intersects the
surface the corresponding Z coordinate is returned.
When point snap mode is active, the standard level point and property snap behaviors remain. This feature makes
it simple to set Z coordinates and property elevations directly from a surface or solid model.
Arc/Line Fit to Polyline - New in V14.5 -
Curves--Arc/Line Fit creates new arc or line elements for each circular or linear polyline contained in the
active group. The new arc or line elements can either replace the existing polyline elements at their respective
database position, or be added to the database at the current insert position, without replacing the original
polylines. This option is useful for converting extracted surface trimming curves into prismatic arc and line
geometry.
Solid Selection - New in V14.5 - The group arrow now allows an entire solid to be selected by double-clicking
a surface on the solid.
Dynamic View Enhancements - New in V14.5 -
The Dynamic View dialog box has been consolidated, with the Configure options being integrated into the main dialog
window. Additionally, a number of new options have been added. These include:
- Rotate About List box contains several options that control the rotation point when rotating your
view. A new option for Screen Center has been added.
- View Orientation Specifies a standard orthogonal or isometric view to apply to the selected Relative
Plane. When a view is selected from the list, the display re-orients to that view.
- Relative Plane Specifies the workplane to which the selected View Orientation is applied. When a
workplane is selected from the list, the display re-orients to the new workplane view.
- Full Returns the view to full viewing position.
- Restrict Rotation restricts the dynamic view rotation to a single axis through the specified rotation
center and parallel to the specified axis.
- Zoom About Cursor uses the current mouse pointer location as the zoom center, allowing the user
to quickly zoom into or away from a specific point on a part without having to also pan the view.
- Quick View in Group Mode When disabled, the hot-key dynamic viewing is disabled when the group
arrow is active, allowing Shift+Ctrl to be used for group box/range de-selection. When enabled, the
hot-key dynamic viewing is active even when the group arrow is active.
Mouse/Keyboard Dynamic View Configuration - New in V14.5 -
User can pick which mouse button controls rotate, spin, and pan when using the Shift+Ctrl+mouse dynamic view.
Support for 3DConnexion Spaceballs and Navigators - New in V14.5 -
SmartCAM now supports the 3DConnexion Spaceball/Navigator 3D mice. With the 3D mouse, the user can rotate, spin,
pan, and zoom the view at will. Existing Dynamic View dialog and mouse/keyboard view controls are unaffected.
Macro System Improvements - New in V14.5 - SmartCAM v14.5 includes a complete rewrite of the built-in
macro engine. The new macro system, based on a 2-pass compiler, offers faster performance, better error checking
and diagnostics, tighter data typing, expanding branching, updated syntax, and additional capabilities.
Some of these new features include:
- Re-sizable array variables
- GOTO() can jump to any location in the macro (used to be forward only)
- ELSEIF added to IF/ELSE/ENDIF conditional branching
- Older ",AND" and ",OR" syntax replaced with modern && and ||
- Can assign data to variables at declaration
- Can use "+" operator to concatenate strings
- New functions: EL(), FMT(), ATOI(), ATOD(), ITOA(), ALLOCATE(), REALLOCATE(), SIZE(),
SOLID_GRP[], IS_CLOSED(), WINDING_DIR()
For more information, please refer to the SmartCAM Customization Guide. Additional documentation on
automating and customizing SmartCAM is also included in the "Automating SmartCAM" v14.5 help file.
New Default Views - New in V14.5 -
Six new default views are available from the Dynamic View dialog box, or they can be added to your
hot-keys. The views are: Bottom, Left, Back, Iso2, Iso3, and Iso4.
Solid Tool Display in Show Path - New in V14.5 -
A new Show Path tool display type is available in SmartCAM Milling, Turning, and Wire applications. When
the tool display type is set to "3D Solid" a 3-D shaded and rotated tool is shown in Milling and Wire. In
Turning applications, a shaded 2-D planar tool is displayed.
Surface Edge Display - New in V14.5 -
When a shaded surface is drawn in the graphics view, Display Boundary Edges will draw the surface's
boundary edges. This makes it easier to see and select specific surfaces.
Utility--Color Change - New in V14.5 -
An Apply button has been added to allow multiple color changes without having to restart the
dialog after each change.
Element Data Enhancement - New in V14.5 -
Element Data now shows the diameter of cylindrical NURBS surfaces.
Measure Enhancement - New in V14.5 -
Delta X, Y, and Z, the incremental distances between the two points being measured, is calculated.
New in all SmartCAM V14.0 Applications:
ACISŪ Solid Modeling Kernel - New for all SmartCAM V14.0 - All SmartCAM products now include the
ACIS solid modeling geometry kernel, previously only available in the FreeForm Machining and Advanced Milling
products. This new capability allows all applications to import/export 3D wireframe, surface, and solid model
data via DXF, DWG, IGES, and ACIS-SAT.
OpenGL Graphics - New in V14.0 - The SmartCAM main graphics view (g-view) has been updated with
OpenGL graphics. This change has several benefits, especially increased graphics performance. Other benefits include:
Shaded Surfaces
Surfaces in SmartCAM can now be shaded, making it much easier to see what the
surfaces represent and how they relate to each other. Surface models and solids
are now considerably easier to work with and visualize. A global transparency value
can be applied to the shaded model, allowing for "through the part" viewing.
Surface Picking
Picking shaded surfaces is much easier than picking surfaces in wireframe, and is
useful for adding surfaces to a group, for example. You can pick anywhere on the
surface in shaded mode, and the selected element is highlighted using a different
highlight color.
Reversed Normals on Surfaces
In the shaded view, surfaces with reversed normals can be viewed in a different
color to make them easy to locate so they can be corrected.
Concurrent Dynamic Viewing
The Dynamic View functionality (provide only in a separate dialog box in previous
versions) is now available on-demand in the g-view window. Using the keyboard
function keys and mouse, the model can be immediately and dynamically zoomed,
spun, panned or rotated.
These dynamic viewing options are also available during ShowPath tool
motion verification.
Line Thickness
A new set of Display Modes options allow line width of Step or Layer line
elements to be thickened, providing improved visibility when the toolpath or
model edge geometry is displayed on top of a shaded model. Also, when the thick
line style is used only for Step or Layer, it is now easy to distinguish toolpath
from wireframe CAD geometry.
Group Element Marking Color
The Display Modes Element Marking setting has been enhanced to include options
for Color, and Color and Arrows combined, providing better group element identification.
Machining From Solids Geometry Tools - New in V14.0 - the Create-From Solid geometry toolbox tools
have been enhanced and are also now available in all SmartCAM products.
The From Solid functionality has been enhanced to allow boundary and slice profiles
to be created from a group of surfaces. The Boundary function can now create a composite boundary
from multiple adjacent surfaces which share edges, and the Slice function can now slice an entire
solid or a subset of surfaces.
A new Hole Flip option has been added to allow the entry side of through holes to be interactively
toggled from one side to the other.
Element Data now reports whether a surface is a member of a solid, or not.
Code Compensation - New in V14.0 - New Machine Event allows special radius compensation user
commands to be inserted into non-offset toolpath profiles.
File Preview Enhancements - New in V14.0 - When you save a PM5 Process Model file,
a thumbnail image of the current g-view display is stored with the PM5 file to be displayed in the File
Open Preview display. The File Open, Merge, CTG and Font file select dialogs also now include a Preview window.
Clicking on the image preview displays a larger version of the thumbnail image.
Intermediate File Open/Save Dialogs Removed - New in V14.0 - The intermediate SmartCAM file selection
dialog has been replaced with standard Windows file dialogs, bypassing the need to trigger the "File Select"
button on the old dialog box.
Process Planner, Sort by Type Option - New in V14.0 - A new Process Planner Sort option allows the Step
and Tool lists to be sorted by Operation and Tool type, which is particularly helpful when using the planner to
organize and perform management tasks on your Job Libraries.
Invert Visibility Option - New in V14.0 - A new Invert Visibility option has been added to the Group
palette and pop-up menu, providing the ability to toggle the visibility of geometry; items hidden become visible, and
items visible become hidden.
Tool Tips - New in V14.0 - SmartCAM now displays tool tips, a short descriptive text string that
describes what the cursor is hovering over.
Copy Image - New in V14.0 - the File-Copy Image captures the current graphics view to the Window's
clipboard to use in Setup Sheets or other documentation.
