On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 11:57, Tony Alfrey wrote:

On Monday 26 April 2004 01:55 pm, Mike McMullin wrote:

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On Mon, 2004-04-26 at 08:44, Tony Alfrey wrote:

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On Monday 26 April 2004 03:28 am, Mike McMullin wrote:

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On Sun, 2004-04-25 at 23:36, Tony Alfrey wrote:

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VariCAD is a) about 400 bucks US b) a true solid modeler, sorta like Autodesk Inventor c) will generate dxf 2-D files, and 3-D iges and dwg files that are readable by autocad but not "importable" into autocad. So autocad cannot edit the files.

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Is the .IGES translator good enough for the like of WorkNC *horribly fussy)?

Mike

Ummm, I don't know what you mean. I usually provide the 2-D dxf file and the solid iges file to my machine shop. Then, if I forget a dimension on the dxf, they pull up the iges solid to measure the part. The translator works 99% of the time and VariCAD is working on a new kernel that is supposed to fix a variety of small annoyances..

We use WorkNC at work, and it's not the greatest in terms of importing IGES files put out by Unigraphics. We get a lot of mangled surfaces, and holes where there shold be any. Needless to say, holes make for damaged cutters. :(

Mike

My shop really does not depend on the iges file to cut metal or generate a tool path directly, but more as a sanity check to confirm that their programming matches my idea of what the part is supposed to look like. It is my (perhaps uninformed) perception that the only way to get perfect transferability between CAD software to finished metal is for everthing in the chain between designer and machine tool is to use one comprehensive software package (I guess something like Pro Engineer).

Regrettably I don't know of one all-in-one package, and the CAM software for Linux is not much past 2D from what I've seen. I wonder if such a package isn't really above what FOSS is capable of delivering. :( Mike