Ignore area in center of geometry

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jake
Posts: 74
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:15 pm
Location: Dayton, Ohio

Ignore area in center of geometry

Post by jake »

I stumbled in to the fact that if you select regions where one region is entirely inside of another region, the machining operation cuts the area inside the larger region, and ignores the area inside the region that is enclosed by the other region.

For example, if you have two regions that are concentric circles, and you select both, the maching operation will machine the donut and not the hole formed by the inner circle.

I don't know what the exact rules are where multiple regions are concerned, but perhaps someone from support could comment.

I find this "feature?" very useful, because it actually solves the issue of wanting to ignore large areas of the model in machining operations. You can place a region around the whole model, then place a region around an area you want to "ignore". Select both regions, create a machining operation (not sure if this works on roughing), and the resultant operation will ignore the area inside the region that is enveloped by the larger region. I suspect that multiple regions enclosed by a larger region will be ignored, but haven't tested.
jake
Posts: 74
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:15 pm
Location: Dayton, Ohio

Ignore area in center of geometry

Post by jake »

I tested this with multiple regions inside of a larger region. Selecting all regions and machine causes all enclosed regions inside the larger region to be ignored.

Note that this would not be completely safe for clamp avoidance, because the tool exit and entries may cross into the regions. It is great for keeping the cutter away from areas that are adequately finished by prior operations (large flat areas, for example) It is also good for finishing only the periphery of the model.

I'm not sure whether this is an intended feature, or the product of the internal algorithms, but it is very useful to me. I hope it doesn't go away in future releases.

[Edited by jake on 09-Nov-04 17:29]
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