Feature request, choose Zzero by toolpath not globally

[harryball]

Is there some fundimental reason VCPro (or any software ) can not allow you to choose where to zero Z by toolpath instead of globally?

I zero for carvings on the surface of the material and cut throughs are zero'd to the table. In VCPro I must choose globally where to zero Z and once I decide on a split method I can never preview the toolpaths correctly again unless I recalculate them all with the same setting.

Using this split method works great for saving the spoil board and keeps me from fussing trying to measure the thickness of materials that change batch to batch.

Feature request maybe?

Robert

[BrianM]

Hi Robert,

Is there some fundimental reason VCPro (or any software ) can not allow you to choose where to zero Z by toolpath instead of globally?

Yes!

When you choose to Z Zero off the surface, the surface of the material becomes the ABSOLUTE Z zero origin, and all the toolpath values will have a negative z.

When you choose to Z Zero off the table, the base of the material becomes the ABSOLUTE Z zero origin, and all the toolpath values will have a positive z.

The program can only have one global coordinate system to draw the toolpaths and simulate them, so if we had toolpaths calculated using different origins, they would never match up and would confuse most people looking at them within the program.

Regards

Brian

[Gary u]

I to am having problems figuring out the bast way to deal with this. I have a idea of a program change that would be great but I know that it would never happen.

Say we set a limit as to how far the cutter cuts into the spoil board and call that absolute zero in the controller software. Then we set the cutter to the material top and lets call that relative zero (in V Carve).

We do all our milling based on relative zero but had a button that we could select when making a final cut that would send a command to the controller software (win cnc in my case) that would say goto absolute zero.

That would be great but I am sure that it is far to complicated to implement.

I will ask the question that I am sure has been asked before.

What is the best way to cut out parts?

I get the best results if I z zero to the material top for datos and dowel holes but I get the best results z zeroing to the spoil board for cut outs.

It is not practical to make two files and it is not easy to re zero the machine to the spoil board when there is a sheet on it.

I am sure that you guys have a proceedure that has got around this issue.


Cheers


Gary Urlacher
Alberta Canada