Margins

[mike ross]

Howdy, Purchased a 3d model, used Rhino to save as .3ds, opened with Cut3D, all is good so far. Now this model is an oval dished out shape and I want Cut3D to just machine inside that oval. So I set the machining margins to use the model silhouette. Problem is: the area to be machined stays a rectangle, I want an oval and think the program will do this but I am stumped.

To use model silhouette you must have symmetrical checked (to get the checkbox to use model silhouette). Attached image shows it with a -.5 margin to show how it does not follow the shape of the model.

Please tell me what I am missing, it cant be this hard!

Thank you,

Mike Ross

[Paco]

Mike,

you wont "see" the effective silhouette margins until you calculate any toolpath; go further the process and you'll see it follow the model silhouette based on your set margin...

Does that help? If not, post the entire Cut3D window as screen shot so we'll see your settings.

[mike ross]

Thanks Paco,

I have tried this all the way to toolpathing many, many times. Heres an image of the roughing pass, you can see the toolpath does not follow the oval model. It machines into a rectangle (almost like a bounding box) I have symmetrical checked and the distance set to 0.0 ,Use model silhouette is selected too.

Probably something simple that I am missing...

[CRFultz]

Mike have you tried to add a 1/2 inch to your margin in all 4 sides.
Don't check the boxes...just add a margin and click apply...make sure your material size is sufficient.

let us know if that works or not.

Chuck

Hey some of my mail went to your town in the past.....
Welcome to the Forum

[Paco]

Set some margin distance (right box from symmetrical).

Aside note, if your model doesn't have a flat area equal to the material surface (I'm assuming here) it'll machine around it...

[Tony Mac]

Hi Mike,

The software is designed to machine the complete 3D model and what you are
trying to do is to only machine inside the specific oval region. The software will
use the silhouette boundary to machine a constant distance around and over the
whole model.

The 3D clipart models from Vector Art 3D include a pre-defined boundary that
the software knows about and uses to limit the toolpaths. Other arbitrary model
files do not include this information so there's no way of restricting the toolpaths
inside Cut3D.

I hope this makes sense,

Tony

[mike ross]

Aside note, if your model doesn't have a flat area equal to the material surface (I'm assuming here) it'll machine around it..

there's no way of restricting the toolpaths inside Cut3D.


Aha! Thats my problem. Thank you for the help.

Any chance that we will see an option of restricting toolpaths in future versions?

[Paco]

Any chance that we will see an option of restricting toolpaths in future versions?

I'm hoping it'll make the next release when Cut3D will be incorporated into VCP... that would actually mean that we'll need to have the 3D CAM inside VCP...