breaking a 3d path up into parts

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PaulDouville
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:20 am
Model of CNC Machine: 40-915x

breaking a 3d path up into parts

Post by PaulDouville »

Hi,
I have a roughly oval shape (think 'organic' oval) that is highly textured from an imported bitmap. It machines fine but both offset and raster take a very long time to machine it.

The project is a '29' style cribbage board with the playing surface flat and full height of the workpiece so that it's flat. That means the bulk of it requires no machining at all. The thing is that offset and raster both span the entire work piece so the machine spends a great deal of time going back and forth over portions that require no machining at all.

Is there a way to break the machining paths up so that I could identify the half dozen areas that 'do' need to be machined and create toolpaths for those and leave the areas that don't need any work alone? I haven't been able to find a way to do this in 3d.

Thanks!

Paul

tonydude919
Vectric Wizard
Posts: 771
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:28 am
Model of CNC Machine: cnc mako shark ext bed with HD 5 gantry
Location: Buffalo,NY

Re: breaking a 3d path up into parts

Post by tonydude919 »

This is from vectric.com it's on your aspire disc that you bought.

F12 - Rest Machining

A demonstration of the technique for isolating and efficiently machining only the areas of a model that have not been reached by previous toolpaths.

This video is only available on the Aspire Installation disk

Tony
What will matter is not what you bought but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave

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Adrian
Vectric Archimage
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Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:19 pm
Model of CNC Machine: ShopBot PRS Alpha 96x48
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: breaking a 3d path up into parts

Post by Adrian »

If you draw vectors around the areas you want to machine and then have those vectors selected when you create the 3D toolpaths only the areas within those vectors will be machined.

PaulDouville
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:20 am
Model of CNC Machine: 40-915x

Re: breaking a 3d path up into parts

Post by PaulDouville »

Ahh - perfect - the video is just what I needed!

Thanks

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