Bryan,
I hate to say that catia plm express will not be available until oct-31.

Bryan, you seem ungrateful.   lol

I don't think anyone in the history of NC programming has recieved as much attention as you.
Well, at least we appreciate the fixes you got for us. 

Are you going to visit Dassault while you are in France?

Enjoy your vacation and I hope you come back relaxed and worry free.

So, are you going to visit Dassault when you are in France?

I understand about leaving work behind.  I was in Europe for 6 months and didn't visit Dassault.  I never took the time to find out if it is even possible.

I appreciate you taking the time to give me some details about your extra modules.  I spoke with Rand a few years ago about purchasing CATIA and they gave me the impression that most companies that need 5 axis machine programming capibilities buy the AMG license.

I plan to use my system for teaching purposes but thru my business.  Of course, I would like to have the option of creating programs occasionally but I really don't have time to do much programming on the side.  My full time contract programming job and my part time teaching job keep me kind of busy.

No problem. I agree, you'll be fine with AMG, and save a lot of money. In my opinion, with the parts I do, I'd have to be programming full-time for about 3 years solid before the extra modules I got paid for itself. Looking back, I was pretty foolish to buy it, but I really wanted that analyze function at the time. Unfortunately, I really thought it came with the part thickness measuring tool- but it didn't. That's some kind of DMU space analysis module that I don't have. I also wish I had the STL module sometimes- but not often enough to buy it.

I guess I'm still glad I got it because the times when I use the prismatic assistant or the video analyze function I'm really happy about having it. Hopefully when multi-pocket multi-flank contour comes out on R19 for me, I'll be even happier about spending the extra money. Anyways, it will have paid for itself if it hasn't already. I pretty much use prismatic assistant to automatically set-up hole patterns on every part I get with holes. I figure that saves a lot of time when I add it all up.

By the way, I think the way you do it- contract programming in-house is probably the way to go. If I didn't have my 9 year old every day, I'd do that, too. There's positives and negatives to both our jobs. There is really no stability here. It's more like constant overdrive with a few completely dead periods. The stuff that is contracted out is always something very difficult or very hot. I can safely say I rarely get anything easy- not that I'm complaining- I like the challenge, but as you know- sometimes our brains feel FRIED! Also, a lot of the time, we're talking about working several weekends in a row, but it's a lot different when it's for yourself, you don't really mind as much. I think you'd really like working from home. You seem like the type of guy that would enjoy it a lot, and be able to make good use of your time. Trust me- it's all about time management, and relationships. And the importance of good documentation is increased probably ten-fold. I have one guy that I subcontract out work to pretty much constantly, and I met him through a contact I made here on the forum. He works out really well. The most important thing to me when I sub-contract out a job is that they are invisible to me. I like that James really never calls me and I've only spent about 5 minutes with him face to face and that was after he'd worked for me for a few months. AND he only lives 15 minutes away! LOL! It's very hard for me to contract work out to someone with a day job, and it's just not really worth it for me- because they are not available enough and I end up having to manage too much. I've learned that keeping my head straight is pretty important, and that's tough when you have too damn many projects at once. On average, I have probably 5-10 projects at a time, and I've had up to 21 for 4 different guys that all do things differently. Trust me, it's a mind @#$^ sometimes, and you go to sleep dreaming about cartesian planes and entry vectors...I've found that there are some good programmers out there. I'm not so cocky as to say I'm the best in the world. I'll say I'm among the best- but there's no way that one person could ever know everything. There's just so much in this field, and the learning never, ever ends. That's why I love it. But I think the edge I have over other programmers is my strength of organization, which allows me to take on a lot of work for a lot of different customers and still deliver each job fresh. A lot of this is Catia- and I do have many catalogues that I've created as well as process templates I've saved. I have EXTENSIVE tooling catalogues. It's at the point where things are pretty seemless, and getting better all the time. I even have batch programs that automate things like NC/Aptsource program inspection, Set-up Sheet creation. I do a lot of stuff with recorded Macro's in Microsoft word.

Pretty cool. Modify this however you like. I like Editpad- it's the coolest text editor, but you could use notepad. It's just that edit pad will open multiple windows, and has a lot of cool stuff. There's a free version on the net. Check this out. Save it as a batch program and drop any type of file on it. It comes in really handy for checking files, and I use it all the time just to double check that everything is kosher.

CLS
ECHO OFF
findstr " WARN Warn ERR Err EXC" %1 > WARNINGS-ERRORS.RPT
EDITPADLITE.EXE WARNINGS-ERRORS.RPT
DEL WARNINGS-ERRORS.RPT
findstr " PPRINT DISPLY $$ " %1 > PPRINT-DISPLY.RPT
EDITPADLITE.EXE PPRINT-DISPLY.RPT
DEL PPRINT-DISPLY.RPT
findstr " LOADTL M6 M06 CUTTER " %1 > TOOLCHANGE.RPT
EDITPADLITE.EXE TOOLCHANGE.RPT
DEL TOOLCHANGE.RPT
findstr " ( " %1 > NC-NOTES.RPT
EDITPADLITE.EXE NC-NOTES.RPT
DEL NC-NOTES.RPT
EDITPADLITE.EXE %1

We should talk outside the forum. Give me a call in the next few days before I go to France.

Bryan,

My PC APT had a CAD program with it that did generate roadmaps.  I can't remember the name of the program, APTGEN? maybe.  Anyway, I gave my dongle to a friend.  That's not as nasty as it sounds.

APT was great for repeatitive programming and family of parts, but I will never program with it again.  I programmed with NCL about 10 years ago and that was after a long break away from it.  I enjoyed programming with it and I ended up doing some fixed bid work that I did in PC APT and converted it to NCL.  That is very easy to do.

I am 50 years old and plan to retire in the next 10 years.  CATIA V5 is doing me just fine and will take me to retirement.  I will move to V6 but not back to APT.

I am surprized that you aren't more interested in V6.  It sounds like it may be more code friendly.  I heard everything is stored in a database and everything is object oriented.  That sounds like stuff I learned in C++ classes.  Maybe I am totally of base, but I am anxious to find out.

Most places that hire me for contract labor have work that is specificly suited for CATIA V5.

Head up

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Surface analysis tool for creating a machinable model, with contiguous surfaces

Is it possible for Dassault,  to create a tool that functions like the  sketch analysis tool, for testing pocket walls to be machined using Multi-Axis Flank Contouring operation?

The methodology I am interested in is giving the Navigate on Belt of Faces computations, to part designers, to assure a  machinable model

 The Navigate on Belt of Faces allows you to select all faces that are adjacent to the one you have selected. Select two adjacent faces and click the icon. All adjacent face are selected.

If you look in the docs under Edge and Face Selection Toolbars in NC infrastructure

There, you will see the Face Selection Toolbar

See FIG 1

The way  Navigate on Belt of Faces works, is

1. you select drive 1, and drive 2, 

2. you push the Navigate on Belt of Faces button

>>> all faces that are adjacent t face are selected.

If this fails, that "SOMETHING" is wrong, and the surface "AS IS" is undrivable, and the NC programmer, must create some new surface to drive the cutter.

Also look in the docs  for this:

Create a Multi-Axis Flank Contouring Operation in Tanto Fan Mode

There is a test part to open

I altered the model by putting a .05 deep pocket, that created a sharp corner on the rail top, and caused the Navigate to fail.

At the least, the Airframe designers, could use NC manufacturing itself, for testing this.

What do you think?

Dave