Vectric V11 Wish list

[Rut Row]

Hi Rut Row,

For “horizontal” signs (and other types of projects) I setup my Job dimensions so the material is horizontal on-screen.

I then do the complete layout in that orientation. Often, I will also draw a rectangle “outline” encompassing the entire layout that is the exact same size as the material.

Then, I’ll select everything (including the “outline” rectangle) and rotate by 90-degrees.

I’ll change my Job dimensions for a vertical layout, then select everything again, then press F9 to center everything on the new vertical layout orientation.

It’s a quick and easy solution.

and a royal pain in the ass when a simple change to the Vectric GUI could allow us to rotate the view. Alas, as stated, this simple request violates the "we've always done it this way" dogma.

[mtylerfl]

Hi Rut Row,

Perhaps a GUI function may be introduced in the future.

But, for the here-and-now, this is a solution I hoped you would find helpful.

[IslaWW]

Rut Row: the question to "swap x and y axis" comes up often and there are some existing ways to accomplish this:

• swap the two axes on your machine. Which I half think IslaWWW was getting at although see the end of this message *
• edit the post processor for your machine as Rcnewcomb indicated. It's fairly easy.
• next time you need to replace your (or if you want to add a second) monitor get one that can rotate to portrait mode—great for reading documents on too!

The request to "swap axes" should be reframed as (and probably directed to support@vectric.com):

Can we have an option in the Job Setup to indicate the orientation of our machine? This would either be "landscape" as the various Vectric program's behaviour is now or "portrait". Portrait would set the Y axis to run left (negative) to right (positive) and the X axis would run top (negative) to bottom (positive).

* My way and the way people want (but ask for it, generally, inefficiently) doesn't violate:

Vectric uses the accepted Cartesian Coordinate system which has been around for ~400 years.

Positive and negative for the X and Y axes will still act as in the image (if we rotate the image 90 degrees to the right). There is no imperative for XY (0,0) to be in the lower left corner of the screen with X going left and right.

If your software's XY Zero, datum or reference is not at the top left corner of the screen, Vectric haven't implemented a simple 90 rotation of the quadrant system!
 
Coordinate Plane.jpg

You must have missed the line where I stated that: "You are standing in the wrong Place!" I have not seen a consumer grade CNC made in the US where the machine XY home (zero, reference or datum) is not in the lower left corner. Some of them have the gantry running the X axis, some the Y. Just like in my 2 provided illustrations. Of course. some that have the gantry travel in the X direction often fail to fully explain to the user that what he perceives as the right side is in actuality the front.

When the table is viewed from the proper direction, which by the way, makes operation easier as the keyboard motion commands are in sync, the machine XY home position is in the lower left

[Rut Row]

Rut Row: the question to "swap x and y axis" comes up often and there are some existing ways to accomplish this:

• swap the two axes on your machine. Which I half think IslaWWW was getting at although see the end of this message *
• edit the post processor for your machine as Rcnewcomb indicated. It's fairly easy.
• next time you need to replace your (or if you want to add a second) monitor get one that can rotate to portrait mode—great for reading documents on too!

The request to "swap axes" should be reframed as (and probably directed to support@vectric.com):

Can we have an option in the Job Setup to indicate the orientation of our machine? This would either be "landscape" as the various Vectric program's behaviour is now or "portrait". Portrait would set the Y axis to run left (negative) to right (positive) and the X axis would run top (negative) to bottom (positive).

* My way and the way people want (but ask for it, generally, inefficiently) doesn't violate:

Vectric uses the accepted Cartesian Coordinate system which has been around for ~400 years.

Positive and negative for the X and Y axes will still act as in the image (if we rotate the image 90 degrees to the right). There is no imperative for XY (0,0) to be in the lower left corner of the screen with X going left and right.

If your software's XY Zero, datum or reference is not at the top left corner of the screen, Vectric haven't implemented a simple 90 rotation of the quadrant system!
 
Coordinate Plane.jpg

You must have missed the line where I stated that: "You are standing in the wrong Place!" I have not seen a consumer grade CNC made in the US where the machine XY home (zero, reference or datum) is not in the lower left corner. Some of them have the gantry running the X axis, some the Y. Just like in my 2 provided illustrations. Of course. some that have the gantry travel in the X direction often fail to fully explain to the user that what he perceives as the right side is in actuality the front.

When the table is viewed from the proper direction, which by the way, makes operation easier as the keyboard motion commands are in sync, the machine XY home position is in the lower left

My request has nothing to do with the machine and everything to do with the software.

[litzluth]

Quite the contrary. It is not the case, as you suggested in your first post, that the NextWave's X and Y axis are opposite of what V-Carve uses. Gary was correct. It is simply that your machine doesn't have enough length along the X axis to cut a "wide" sign in that orientation, so of course you have to create a layout that can utilize the longer Y axis to make the cut. That is a hardware issue. It becomes a software issue only because it is a little easier to view a wide sign along the X axis without having to then reorient it along the Y axis to cut it. Seems to me that Michael's solution is simple, and hardly a "royal pain in the ass."

[adze_cnc]

Any topic that gets 3-deep quotes and “I know what you want better than you do” posts has outstayed its welcome.

If the original poster wants his machine to be remapped to the view on the screen then yes he would have to reverse polarity, sacrifice a chicken, and incant the magic words. But what he wants is the software to have a built-in option to conform to his machine—as well as many other people’s machines.

As the underlying software model has the capability of rotational matrices this could be done. Not easily as many of the screens (such as the linear array) are hard coded to X left/right; Y up/down

I still think that a monitor that can rotate to portrait mode is a good thing...

[cncroi]

Wish list for V12 or higher:

• User defined "No-Go" areas to avoid clamps
• Collet collision detection

Never even thought of clamps / screws no-go areas but wow would that be nice to avoid the mental gymnastics I currently do in this regard... +10 on both of these!

[4DThinker]

I'd like to see a feature that could use the variable values so they could be assigned to certain vectors. Like "Bolt Hole diameter" being assigned to a row of circles (holes). Then if the hole size needed to be changed, say from .25" to .1875" that a change of the variable value and a refresh of the drawing all holes with that variable name would be redrawn to the new size. Rectangles used to outline dado slots could be named "3/4 thick dado width" and if the plywood turns out to be 18mm a simple change of the variable value would change the width of them all to 18mm, referenced from their starting node corner which stays in place. After any variable change the software would remind to recalculate all the toolpaths. A ctrl-z would undo unexpected results as usual.
4D