SmartCAM Automation Overview

SmartCAM's powerful macro system and configurable user interface enable users to automate both common and less common tasks, making the functionality easily accessible.

This section of the "Learning SmartCAM" documentation provides a comprehensive, fundamental explanation of how SmartCAM's Macro system works, including an overview of standard terms and programming concepts, as well as guidance on building a user interface with Visual CTK and integrating your automations into SmartCAM. By reviewing this information, the reader will get an introduction to programming concepts, and SmartCAM MCL (Macro Command Language) features in particular.

Why Automate?

There are several reasons why one might use SmartCAM's automation features. These include:

• Family of parts - a case where the user often creates similar parts with slight variations.
• Common operations - a case where the user often runs the same operations over and over again.
• New functionality - to give the SmartCAM application the ability to do something that it cannot already do.
• Integration - to integrate SmartCAM with other applications.
• Simplification - making existing functionality easier to use for you.

The reasons for automating are manifold, but the tools and processes are all very similar. They are also reasonably easy to learn and use.

Organization

The Automating SmartCAM documentation is organized as follows.

• Fundamentals
  The basics of macro development. If you are new to the idea of script, macro, or computer programming, start here.
• Record and Playback
  Automating a series of tasks with a macro. This is the simplest form of macro programming and the basis for more advanced techniques.
• From The Beginning
  Making full use of the SmartCAM macro system.
• Creating a User Interface
  Using Custom Control panels and dialogs.
• Debugging your Macros
  Finding and fixing problems with your macros.

Additional Resources

The following additional resources are available to aid in learning how to Automate SmartCAM.

• General Programming Tutorials/Books/References
  SmartCAM's macro system operates similarly to other procedural programming languages, scripts, or macros. General programming concepts found in other languages are applicable in SmartCAM's macro language. While the language syntax may not match, the general concepts found in online and printed materials for DOS Batch language, Visual Basic, VBA, C, WordBasic, Perl, and other languages may be of assistance.
• SmartCAM User Forum ("Join the SmartCAMcnc Email Forum" shortcut in the SmartCAM section of the Windows Start menu) - allows SmartCAM users to help each other.