What's Wrong With Mastercam

Update 5-24-2013:

 

Mastercam X7 is such a mess that today CNC Software announced that an update for X7 will be available in a few weeks. Mastercam users need to ask themselves why this keeps happening immediately after every major point release of Mastercam. My answer for why it keeps happening and what needs to be done about it is simple: CNC Software needs to be sold to an owner who cares and who doesn't live in fantasy land.

CNC Software's owner Mark Summer's obviously doesn't care about delivering reliable, quality CADCAM software and his miserable track record since the release of Mastercam X proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Mark Summers is a arrogant, hateful and spiteful man who thinks that banning users who have spoken up for years about these serious issues with Mastercam is the way to deal with Mastercam's serious problems.

Mastercam X7 should have *NEVER* have been released so early. This is typical of any Mastercam initial release since the start of Mastercam X and by now this pattern is beyond pathetic. Here are just a few of the comments on Mastercam X7 that were posted to eMastercam:

"After all the noise about X6 problems it seems CNC didn't learn from its mistakes and the maintenance $ thirst is still around... the problems with the new verify are simply ridiculous... if you guys can't integrate someone's else technology properly or this technology is not mature enough, then you should show more respect for the customers and hone it well before you release it... if Mastercam was a car I wonder how many casualities we would have by now...

It's a good time to review what you call "quality" software and the efforts of your beta testers. I'm sure people are catching these problems, but your bandwidth is not processing them. And your bandwidth problems are solely yours..."

"We currently are still using MCX6 because I'm not wasting our time until all these bugs get worked out. "

"On a couple simple parts the tool went COMPLETELY through the part, and did Not output an A move at all..... "

"I use planes a lot for multi sided parts and have seen a similar issue. The tool won't always go thru the part but will start at a arbitrary Z depth and position. Giving the offending toolpath and the one before it extra Clearance seemed to work better. Although we did get good posted code, most of the time we did not get a good Verify using planes."

"Same problem occur in transform-rotary. The tool always runs thru part from one hole to another. But this collision is false."

"X7 hides the toolpath during any view manipulation, previous versions don't."

"My toolbar icons randomly shuffles, Mastercam stop responding (i can rotate model, zoom etc, but no new window pop up when i try to create toolpath etc.) I deleted all registry entry in GUI and restart."

"X7 Did this to me today. It was working fine. I had two instances open to copy some programming from one to another. I used the export then import features to bring the toolpaths into the new program. I had a model for soft jaws in the source program that I also wanted to copy over. As soon as I did that the destination program crashed. I restarted it and it immediately crashed right away. Did that a few more times. So then I tried to save and close the source program and it would not close. So I forced it to close and when restarting it would just immediately crash."

"I'm just wondering if anyone else is having this issue with X7? I am running Windows 7 with MasterCam X7. Everytime I click on something else, my MasterCam window turns white.
If i click on it, it turns back to what i was working on."

"I have same problem after updating to X7, but McamX7 have many more bugs that interfere with work. This bug is smallest."

"I have problem with button 'set the origin of the selected view to 0,0,0' in view manager. The value of X and Y coordinates different from 0. When I pushing this button the values don't changes to 0. In McamX6 it works properly."

"I just started using X-7, I exclusively program 5 axis mill turns. I am having ALOT of issues with the verification bombing out on multi axis tool paths.We have actually run several of the programs I could not get to verify. Errors are 1) bad allocation 2) Could not create a solid-intersector for a tool element in SimulateToolElement_OnListSurface0!"

"The tool manager crashes frequently. It even crashed during the webinar."

"I don't have to be working in tool manager for it to crash, I just have it open on the side and it just comes up with an error and closes."

"I was hoping X7 would have been delayed a little longer since I really didn't think it was ready for prime time."

 

Update 5-9-2013:

  

Mastercam X7 have been released despite the fact that the new ModuleWorks solid cut part simulation has got major issues. Hoping you can still use the old Mastercam Verify when you have problems with the new Verify? ... not a chance as all the code for the old Verify (MachineWorks) solid cut part verification has been ripped out of X7.

CNC Software is well aware that there are major problems with the new Verify and with the new Backplotter. As per usual CNC Software simply doesn't care because their focus was on pushing X7 out the door as soon as possible to stem the tide of those switching to far better CADCAM products. Some of the serious problems with the new X7 Verify from ModuleWorks have been discussed on eMastercam:

"You are seriously going to release that soon with the way that Verify functions? It is so coarse and grainy I have a hard time using it. I don't feel comfortable using it the way that it works."

"It seems the bigger the part the worse the aliasing gets. I have also noticed that you can’t even save out an STL file without it being garbled up as well. Here is a part I was working on that is 112 inches long. You can see that it’s barely recognizable. If this is how the final release will be I will be forced to stick with X6."

"Unfortunately Mastercam has been a work in process for a long time. I know what they are doing is no small task. But as and end user I don't think X7 should be released with the Verify functioning like this. If the Verify is a "Work In Progress" than don't release it till it is done. I'm not flaming here I'm just being honest. We pay good money for this software and maintenance and I think we deserve better than this."

"I had MAJOR verify issues in the Betas, and even the first RC."

"I'll definitely be going back to X6 till this gets sorted out.... It's just some easy transform paths, would have thought this would be sorted out after the 1st Beta???"

"the backplot/verify is Crazy Slow too.... It's not my computer hardware because everything was speedy in X6. "

"this is almost unusable as of now."

"Already submitted several files on this one, and just now tried something a little more complex that 2.5 axis milling on standard stock setup.

The bugs are still there. Its just no longer crashing to the desktop.

If Im using a face Mill, I get the error "zero length line", the tool doesnt display, and the verify is incorrect


If I try 3 X 2 milling, std end mill, and select a solid for the stock, (orthogonal solid) i get this error :
"could not create a solid-intersector for a toolElement in SimulateToolElement_OnListSurface()!"

followed by this error:
"bad allocation"

Followed by this error:
"????????"

then the stock disappears"

"Any file I have saved out of X7's verification is so chunky and deformed that it is impossible for me to use it in that state. Any help would be appreciated because as it stands right know I will not be moving to X7. "

"I have already done all that and it still looks like crap!! I can't believe anybody is okay with the Verification working like this!"

"... this is totally unacceptable for me and the way I work."

"I remember reporting this in one of the preview releases and they told me that was going to be fixed for release."

"I just tried the most simple Transform Rotate toolpath (4th axis) I could think of. Mill two slots on top, rotate from Right view and repeat on bottom.

Wouldn't even post an A move, tool goes right through the part????"

"Well it looks like no one has a good answer for the STL file issue. I was hoping to hear that there was a workaround that is commonplace in Mastercam. The Verify worked bad in the beta and release candidate and I was told that it would be better in the production release. Well that didnt happen! How can anyone possibly say they are okay with this. I don't get it. I actually thought that this new verification would be a step in the right direction. Boy was I wrong or should I say mislead."

Update 4-5-2013:

Here are the facts about Mastercam file stability once you pass the 100 meg file size. From what I've seen so far in X7 this hasn't been dealt with. As posted to eMastercam:

"I've had fairly good success up to around 100MB, but then after that, it can be full of adventure."

"I am struggling with a 300MB file at the moment. Think the stock models are choking it up. Unfortunate as I like the extra refinement it achieves with the rest mill toolpathes."

"... anything over about 200 Mb gets really sluggish, with long waits for things to get done. "

"The cavity insert I recently finished ended up at 1.4GB for rough / semi and 1.2GB for finishing, I think the core was 2.1GB. Takes 10 minutes or so just to open the files."

"I had to break my paths up into quadrants, otherwise I'd end up with "memory" errors while generating. Every few paths I'd restart Mcam, otherwise I'd end up with 0 byte NCI files."

"You must have the patience of a saint to work like that !! I am getting frustrated with the "quirkiness" at 300MB file size and have started to divide files up from that size. Currently up to 3 files for the cavity I'm programming." 

Count on core basics like the ability to handle large files not being fixed in Mastecam X7. This makes many of the new enhancements in Mastercam X6 and X7 next to worthless. These are the same core problems that existed in  X2, X3, X4, X5 and X6. Anyone see a pattern here?

 

Update 3-19-2013:

My concerns about the new Mastercam solid cut part verification in X7 have turned out to be very valid. I've said for a long time that MachineWorks is a quality solid cut part verification software component and that it has never been implimented properly in Mastercam because Mastercam's graphics pipeline is obsolete and needs to be torn out and replaced. CNC Software has for years refused to spend the money and do this so they have dumped MachineWorks in favor of ModuleWorks solid cut part simulation. The ModuleWorks solid cut part simulation component has its own graphics support and is not affected by Mastercam's outdated and obsolete graphics pipeline. This is the reason Mastercam X7 new solid cut part verification only runs in its own Window and not in the Mastercam user interface. Unfortunately, the ModuleWorks solid cut part simultion software component isn't as good as MachineWorks yet. A few sharper Mastercam users have noticed this, aren't happy, and their saying so very loudly on eMastercam:

"Does anyone know if there will be several more Beta releases? I would like to see the new Verify closer to a release state before we make a decision. The new Verify is terrible in its current state. The accuracy of the cuts is really bad and the Accurate Zoom doesn't help that much either. I'm getting all kinds of shadows and artifacts. I can verify a part in X6 and it looks fine and then the same part in X7 Tech release looks terrible."

"I agree...  The resolution isn't even close to the old verify.  If you verify any part and compare the old against the new, any experienced programmer will notice the huge difference in quality.  We are working in tenths here and don't have several thou. tolerance on any of our projects.  The old verify was much sharper at noticing that tiny detail."

"At least you can verify, when I tried a path that worked just fine in x6 and bring it over to x7 as soon as I try to verify it MC crashes. each time with a different error."

"Theses are some of the things I am talking about with the new verify. You can see from one cut to another in these slots that they look different but are actually identical. Even zoomed way in using the accurate zoom it is still very jaggy."

Update 3-12-2013:

More Mastercam users start to notice that the core basics that have been broken in release after release after release of Mastercam never get fixed:

As posted today to eMastercam:

"I feel that solid chaining in lathe is really only good for the most simplistic geometry.

Beyond that it falls down."

 

Update 2-12-2013:

When will Mastercam be able to handle a stock model like this?  For sure it won't be in X7!

It's all about the stock model and what happens when the stock model is a real solid rather than a tessellated mesh. The CADCAM product above is the only one I'm aware of that's got the right idea!

In the real world, trying to manipulate (rotate, flip, mate, etc) tessellated meshes is a major pain in the ass so trying to solid cut part simulate machining over multiple setups often isn't possible or practical. It doesn't get any more real world problem not solved than this! : (

Even if you spend 20K or more on Vericut or NC Simul, it's still not the answer to this problem.

  

Update 2-3-2013: 

CNC Software Will Continue To Avoid Fixing Most Of The Core Problems With Mastercam In X7

It's painfully obvious to me that CNC Software continues to do everything possible to avoid fixing the core problems in Mastercam. We see this in the very slow progress for increased Levels functionality, very slow progress for increased Viewsheet functionality, no progress on horrible obsolete graphics, terrible solid chaining, solids selection that is a freaking joke it's so bad, inability to handle files with many solids, solids needing to be converted to surfaces to get reliability / stability.

There is still no Setup group in the Mastercam Machining Operations Manager like you have for Toolpath and Machines groups. This means that every single machining operation needs to be individually assigned a WCS, a Toolpath Plane and a Construction Plane. Having to do this is insane and it makes dragging and dropping toolpaths to a new Toolpath Group that uses a different WCS, a different Toolpath Plane and a different Construction Plane a real pain in the ass even if you use Edit Common Parameters to make the change.

When it comes to 4th axis work you have to manually create a Toolpath Plane and a Construction Plane for every side of the part you want to machine on (unless it's the same machining operation and you use Transform Toolpath)! You don't have to do this in better designed programs where all you do is put the WCS in the middle of your axis or rotation and the system automatically takes care of the rest for you.

It's my belief that CNC Software has moved away from MachineWorks(Verify) and gone with ModuleWorks Simulation (Mastercam Machine Simulation) because it has its own graphics engine. I strongly believe that Mastercam Verify (MachineWorks) has been abandoned by CNC Software and left to die in Mastercam. Everyone else using MachineWorks solid cut part simulation has always gotten much better results with it than Mastercam has. Over a year ago MachineWorks went multi-threaded and products like Delcam Featurecam implemented it. This has resulted in much better and much faster solid cut part simulation!

Unfortunately ModuleWorks Simulation having its own graphics engine doesn't help other areas of Mastercam that are so far behind and require a decent graphics pipeline such as Chaining and solids rendering. Never will you see CNC Software employees comment on this. The best I've seen is this video which shows how far behind Mastercam is at solids selection. A lot of the stuff talked about in this video didn't even make into X7. Lots of CADCAM products have had the kind of solid selection tools shown in this video for many years now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exTNNAfZYWY

It's the underlying core of Mastercam that's so broken and CNC Software is doing everything possible to avoid fixing it:

Huge mistakes were made when Mastercam moved from V9 to X. I believe this is the reason why most of the major improvement we see in X7 like the new Tool Manager (Really looks to be outstanding. Hope it works as good as it looks!) are outside of the core of Mastercam. I think this new Tool Manager is actually a separate application that communicates with Mastercam X7.

Mastercam makes the worst use of solids for toolpathing of any CAM system I've ever used. Below are quotes that prove just how bad solids are for toolpathing in Mastercam. After 6 major releases (or more) that this is the case is just pathetic. Even some of the most ardent Mastercam fanboi's, who have made excuse after excuse for poor design and implementation of solids n Mastercam for years now, have had enough.

"i completely quit using solid selection when toolpathing. i always create a surface from the solid and then use those surfaces for toolpathing. my problems seemed to go away."

"Why can someone buy a xbox game for 25$ that has hyper-realistic amazing graphics, while for the past 5 years we can't get a solid face displayed correctly! IMHO someone needs to man-up and roll some heads in the graphics dept back at cnc. Hell hire a few game designers."

“Why can I go to any hardware store and get a free design your own kitchen or back yard deck software disk and the graphics are better than Mastercam”

"I started using MC about 6 months ago myself (new job and all) and I have to say I was at a total loss as to why I had to create curves as well. I was used to programming entirely from the 3D model (Powermill). However, with MC, using the 3D model to program is waste of time for the most part, and it appears as though the majority of your programs are created using wireframe that is created from the 3D model, either in surface or solid form."

"You have absolutely no idea just how much I miss my Delcam products. I had to leave it to stay gainfully employed being as my last place of work went under. Believe me, the first chance I get to go back to working with PM, I will jump all over it"

"Of course there are work-arounds with creating curves but it'd be nice to be able to fully drive tool paths on a a single solid model."

"I have had the same issues with selecting from a solid model. This has been a problem for some time. Just like all the other bugs this one will probably never get fixed"

Excuses and workarounds offered on why after 7 major releases Mastercam solid chaining is still  badly broken from an employee of the Mastercam reseller who has a monopoly for selling Mastercam in Canada:

"Why not create curves on all edges and then use the wireframe chaining options. If your determined to get the solid chaining to work for you then try selecting your part differently. Maybe try selecting a top edge of the solid instead of the bottom edge."

A response from a smarter Mastercam user who knows B.S. when he see's it in regards to the above lame excuse and suggested workaround:

"This is all good, but you should be able to select from the model. Why do they even have the option if you end up having to create curves on edges?"

Update 1-7-2013:

 

Mastercam X7 takes some big steps in the right direction and while it's nowhere near enough there are some huge improvements that make X7 a release that's much better than anything CNC Software has put out in many, many years.

The big question is how well will all the new features in X7 work.

Will they be buggy?

Will the new backplotter based on ModuleWorks Simulation have all the features of the old Backplot and work as well or better?

2D HST, stock model and ModuleWorks Simulator are now multi-threaded. Will this finally make stock model usable if you have a wicked powerful PC with lots of cores? Will 2D HST paths finally regenerate in a decent amount of time? Will solid cut part verification finally be fast enough to be usable in production machine shops doing multiple parts at a time?

Finally, after two major releases (X5 and X6) Transform Toolpath is supported in machine simulation! It's about time!

MachineWorks, which is the software component used for Mastercam Verify, does offer a multi-threaded version which others now offer in their products (Featurecam, etc.). Doesn't look like CNC Software added it. In fact it looks to me like CNC Software has put Verify (MachineWorks) out to pasture and it will be orphaned. Too bad. I think that's going to turn out to be a big mistake.

There has been some work done to improve solid selection in Mastercam X7 and that's good but it pales in relation to the amount of work being done with third party components and with new items like the Tool Manager. I'd bet good money that this new Tool Manager really resides outside of Mastercam's core.

Where Did It All Start To Go Wrong For Mastercam?

 

I feel it happened when a decision was made by CNC Software to keep the existing wireframe geometry engine when creating Mastercam X. This turns out to be an incredibly stupid move. It should have been beyond obvious back then that this was an incredibly stupid idea. The reason the decision was made was to save money because CNC Software's owner Mark Summers didn't understand how important having powerful CAD is to having powerful CAM.

Failure To Make Full Use Of The Information A Solid Model Contains: 

 

CNC Software has claimed that Mastercam X was a rewrite from the ground up. That's bullshit. Mastercam X was not a total rewrite from the ground up and anyone who believes this is drinking the Mastercam fanboi Kool-Aid. Unfortunately, everything in Mastercam is based off an over 25 year old wireframe geometry engine that relies on manual Chaining. The geometry engine in Mastercam relies on manual Chaining because wireframe geometry is dumb and doesn't have the kind of built in intelligence that a solid model does. Until the wireframe geometry engine in Mastercam is removed and replaced with a modern solids based geometry engine, Mastercam will continue to be the bug filled, unreliable and out dated system it has become. Think about this; everything you do in Mastercam is based on manual Chaining from creating solids (except primitives) to toolpaths. You are always wasting time manually Chaining something in Mastercam. What's worse is how modal Chaining is in Mastercam. The following was posted to eMastercam on 4-12-2012 and expresses frustration on how little CNC Software listens to users about making Chaining less modal. It's especially frustrating when an free add-in can do what Mastercam still can't do after ten years:

"Why hasn't this been incorporated into MC yet? It was in V9 (and all previous versions) and someone decided it wasn't needed any longer when X came out. I bitched about it back then. Selecting chains is HUGE in my opinion. The current MC options for selecting chains, which I'm very familiar with, do not offer the same functionality. Since it has been removed, Takashi Sato from AI solutions has created an addon, Verisurf has created an addon, and who knows who else. Can no one at CNC Software read the writing on the wall?"

"I jumped on X+ solely for the chain selection tool."

2D HST Toolpaths Limited:

 

When it comes to Mastercam's HST toolpaths things really start to fall apart. You have very little control with 2D HST toolpaths and you are often forced to play guessing games by constantly analyzing, creating and moving geometry to modify your 2D HST toolpath to gain control over it. You are forced to keep experimenting because that's the only choice you have to control Mastercam's 2D HST toolpaths and this is because Mastercam 2D HST toolpaths don't make use of the information contained in the solid model. Instead, Mastercam 2D HST toolpaths force the user to supply what Mastercam already should know and be able to extract from the solid model. Lets be honest... Mastercam is dumb. Very dumb.

Why Chaining in Mastercam For SolidWorks Is Better: 

 

The choices that Mastercam gives you for Masking are really powerful and that's great if you mainly work with wireframe geometry. I spend the majority of my time working with solid models and almost everything I work with these days is a solid model. Mastercam doesn't have the needed tools for extracting the needed information from a solid model. By way of example: Mastercam often can't figure out the depth of a solid Chain automatically like it can with a wireframe Chain. Solid Chaining is a huge step backwards in Mastercam compared to wireframe Chaining and this can readily be seen in how much better and how much more powerful solid Chaining in Mastercam For SolidWorks is. In Mastercam For SolidWorks, SolidWorks geometry tools like Select Tangency can be used for Chaining. You can also pick sketches from the SolidWorks Feature Manager. Something else that's really nice is the control you have over Chaining in Mastercam For SolidWorks that you don't have in stand alone Mastercam. An example would be in Mastercam For SolidWorks when you pick a face you can specify only look at the outer loop.

Questions Mastercam Users Should Be Asking Themselves:

If Mastercam X was a total rewrite, as claimed, why are the graphics in Mastercam X the same as in DOS based Mastercam V9? Graphics in Mastercam are a bad joke. Chaining is thin and hard to see, direction arrows are wireframe instead of shaded and often disappear with part rotation. Wireframe lines aren't sharp and crisp compared to modern CAD systems like SolidWorks, etc. With a graphics pipeline that needs replacement how can anyone expect quality solid cut part verification graphics for MTM  programming that's supposedly coming for Mastercam?

Why does Mastercam have so many floating dialog boxes when modern CADCAM Windows programs do everything possible to not block the model? What is the reason that tabs can't be added to Mastercam's Machining Operation Manager to get rid of all the floating dialog boxes that constantly have to be dragged out of the way to get to the part model? Wouldn't functions like Analyze Entity Properties be better off displaying information in the Machining Operations Manager under an Analyze tab?

Why are Mastercam FBM Mill and FBM Drill so poorly designed compared to how CAMWorks or Featurecam handle feature recognition?

What program besides Mastercam has a "Ram Saver"?

Why is a "Ram Saver" needed?

Why is drilling so bad in Mastercam that if you want quality drilling you have to spend thousands of extra dollars for Pro-Drill? What other CAM program besides Mastercam has an add-in for drilling?

Why do programs like CAMWorks and TopSolid CADCAM require so little Chaining but Mastercam requires constant Chaining?

Solid Chaining is so bad in Mastercam that you often end up with so many tiny chains. Most experienced Mastercam users don't use solid chaining and instead use wireframe chaining. In better systems like Missler TopSolid CADCAM 7 most of the time you don't need to chain at all because TopSolid CADCAM 7 makes proper use of the solid model and constantly keeps track of the stock.

Why do you have to constantly regenerate dirty machining operations in Mastercam?

Why do machining operations often go dirty just from opening a Machining Parameters dialog box even if you make no changes?

If CNC software has the needed software developers why has Mastercam never had good graphics and why does Mastercam have the worst implementation of MachineWorks of any CAM product that uses MachineWorks?

Why does Mastercam For SolidWorks have many of the same problems that stand alone Mastercam has? Mastercam For SolidWorks was a great chance for a fresh start. That Mastercam For SolidWorks suffers from many of the exact same problems that stand alone Mastercam does shows how poor of a job CNC Software does at designing software. The fact is that CNC Software is a sales leader but not a technology leader.

Why does the solid cut part simulation in Mastercam for SolidWorks have such poor graphics just like the solid cut part simulation in Mastercam does?

What is the reason the same piece of crap View Manager exists in Mastercam For SolidWorks that stand alone Mastercam has? Does anyone else who makes a CAM program that runs inside of SolidWorks have to resort to this horribly designed and modal View Manager? The View Manager is buggy and is modal and can't be left open so you can't easily change views on the fly.

Why doesn't Mastercam have a Profiler which works dynamically? It's a hell of a lot faster and easier to extract wireframe used for toolpath boundries, etc. with a dynamic Profiler than it is to use a static one like Mastercam has. For those who have never used a dynamic Profiler Gibbscam has one.

Why does the Mastercam Level Manager lack functionality like being able to freeze and thaw levels and why can't assign colors to a Level only to Entities? If you leave the Level Manager open constantly you end up with all kinds of weird errors when trying to copy entities from one level to another. One of the few things in Mastercam that isn't modal and you can't even leave it open without having problems.

The reason there isn't a tab in the Machining Operations Manager for Levels is?

Why is the user interface in Mastercam so modal? You constantly have to close a dialog window, open another and then close that window to get back to where you were.

For ten years or more you have been able to click on wireframe elements in Featurecam's backploter and have the machining operation that created the wireframe element highlight. I suggested this improvement in Mastercam to CNC Software over five years ago. Naturally Mastercam still can't do it and I have no doubt its never been given serious consideration by CNC Software.  It doesn't help that Mastercam fanboi and CADCAM idiot James Meyette (CNC Apps Guy 1) claims on the eMastercam forum that if Mastercam offered this it would be a memory and graphics hog. "Yeah, no kidding, you have to actually draw the toolpath motion segments, imagine what a memory and graphics hog that would be." This is the same moron that for years has failed to comprehend that you need powerful CAD to have powerful CAM and that fully integrated CADCAM has huge benefits.

Why is Mastercam CAD so dumb that I have to tell it I want to be in solid selection mode? What modern CAD system has a solid selection mode?

Unfortunately the CAD part of Mastercam is so dumb that you have to extract the wireframe edges from your solid faces which is yet another way Mastercam wastes massive amounts of time.


Why can't you drag a tool out of the tool library and into the graphics area as a shaded model to see if you have enough flute length and stick out?

Why is it that only CNC Software / Mark Summers has problems with Celerative / VoluMill and no other company has had a problem?

How can CNC Software ever be truly successful with their new HST toolpaths if they don't make proper use of the solid model and instead continue to rely on tons of manual user input with wireframe Chaining? You end up Chaining so much in Mastercam that your wrist gets sore.
  
One of the biggest lies often repeated on eMastercam is that "it's hard to beat the over all functionality of MC in a 2d realm". This is total B.S. because: 

CAMWorks, TopSolid, Featurecam all make Mastercam look like the dated joke it is in the "2d realm". Mastercam and Mastercam For SolidWorks don't keep constant track of the stock model like TopSolid does. Mastercam and Mastercam For SolidWorks have very poor feature recognition that only works with FBM Mill and FBM Drill which are both sad, pathetic jokes compared to how feature recognition works in CAMWorks, Featurecam or TopSolid. Mastercam and Mastercam For SolidWorks make the worst use of MachineWorks (Mastercam Verify) in the business.

Mastercam toolpathing doesn't make full use of a solid model so you often have to convert your solid model into a surface model. No one has to do this is a modern properly designed CADCAM system and it's just one of many reason that Mastercam is so far behind and a follower rather than a leader in CAM technology.

Tools and tool holders can't be stored together which means you constantly have to assemble tools.

Mastercam has some nice Analyze tools. Too bad they open in dialog Windows that have to be dragged out of the way constantly. The reason that information from Analyze tools can't be displayed in a separate tab in the Operations Manager so you don't have to constantly drag dialog Windows out of the way is?

Attributes: Open in a dialog Window that has to be dragged out of the way constantly. The reason that information from Attributes:can't be displayed in a separate tab in the Operations Manager so you don't have to constantly drag dialog Windows out of the way is?

Entity Attributes Manager: Opens in a dialog Window that has to be dragged out of the way constantly. The reason that information from the Entity Attributes Manager:can't be displayed in a seperate tab in the Operations Manager so you don't have to constantly drag dialog Windows out of the way is?

If Mastercam is going to rely on Tree Style dialog boxes at least put a button in that allows the user to go straight into Simulation and then when Simulation is done bring the Tree Style dialog box back up automatically. Right now this is a 4 step process. Close, Open, Close, Open... my time is valuable. Stop wasting it!

If CNC Software can't build a decent graphics engine they should license HOOPS from Techsoft3D. Mastercam has the worst graphics of any CAM system I've ever seen. It's an embarrassment and CNC Sofware should be ashamed of how Mickey Mouse the graphics in Mastercam truly are. Another option might be using Redway3D which is what Missler TopSolid CADCAM uses.

Toolpath Editing: Point based Toolpath Editing sucks. Get a copy of SmartCAM and see how Toolpath Editing really should be done. It's called Entity Editing and you use all the same tools that you use for Geometry creation and modification for Toolpath Editing. I'd like the ability to use metric tools in an inch program and vise verse. I don't want to convert my tools on the fly. Mastercam should match the way things work in the real world.

Send Your Bugs And Problem Files to qc@mastercam.com

It's the favorite line used by Mastercam fanboi's on eMastercam. One shop I worked for sent at least 50 files to qc@mastercam and we never got any real answers and none of the bugs we reported were ever fixed. Finally, we stopped reporting bugs when it became obvious that CNC Software didn't really care about fixing the bugs we were experiencing and that CNC Software wasn't interested in making a bug list available. Send your bugs and files to qc@mastercam.com doesn't help because the owner of CNC Software (Mark Summers) doesn't give a dead rats ass about fixing the serious bugs in Mastercam that often make Masteram so unstable and such a headache to use. Many of these serious bugs have existed for well over ten years in Mastercam.

Censorship, Banning And Email Blocking Isn't Working For Mastercam: 

Even though the Mastercam Facebook page is constantly cleansed and numerous people have been banned and blocked, CNC Software can't control the truth which keeps rising to the top over and over about how bad Mastercam has become and how CNC Software's Mark Summers, Steve Bertand and Ben Mund do business:   

Mastercam's Highly Censored Facebook Page 

"I've been watching Mastercam posts since version 9. And even though a second decade of 21st century has started, the software steps back. Competitors are making progress. Software that were behind Mastercam few years ago, starts to be true leading solution for todays market. Mastercam is heading wrong way. An old kernel is limiting the software, makes it more and more buggy. And annoying in use."... Jarek Cieslak

Welcome To The World Of Bugs, Workarounds, Incremental Backups And Frustration:

There are still Mastercam fanboi's who continue to wish to argue that Mastercam isn't a very buggy and unreliable program and that it isn't any worse then say Gibbscam when it comes to stability. In the last 5 years I've used Mastercam on all the different Windows operating systems both 32 bit and 64 bit. I've used Mastercam with at least 6 different kinds of Nvidia Quadro graphics cards including high end ones which cost thousands of dollars. I've used Mastercam versions X2-X5 and without exception all experienced "white outs" when regenerating toolpath, all could not handle large files properly, all had lousy graphics highlighting, all had problems when it came to picking drive surfaces and check surfaces for surfacing toolpath.

What follows is what one former Mastercam fanboi, who is beginning to get much more realistic about the massive problems Mastercam has, now says. He has correctly recognized that the foundation that Mastercam is built on is very badly broken and outdated and that it needs to be completely rewritten. Here is what he posted to e-Mastercam today. I've cleaned up the grammar and punctuation as the posters native language isn't English:

"Mastercam is stable while the file is small with simple geometry and a couple of toolpaths. When you have some different 30-100 solids of parts, tools and fixtures and a huge amount of wireframe geometry on different layers and 4-10 machine groups with 300 toolpaths then things look very different. That`s for a starters. The heavier the file, the more chances for bugs, crashes and different problems. Welcome to the world of bugs, workarounds, incremental backups. and frustration."

While I agree with the above I've also experienced serious reliability problems with small files and just one solid and a few surfacing toolpaths in Mastercam.

This morning (3-19-2012) I read this on eMastercam which lets me know I'm not the only one who has experienced "bugs, workarounds, incremental backups. and frustration." on small Mastercam files:

"This is very true, the bigger the project, the worse the bugs become. But I have experienced problems with smaller, simple projects as well." "... we all know that (X6) MU1 won't fix all the issues that have been in every release since X, why suddenly decide to fix issues that have been around for last five releases now !!"

Update 2-5-2012:

What is the logic behind calling work coordinate systems "views"? Why isn't a solid drawing layout associated to the solid part model so when the part model changes the solid layout updates. Why should I have do the solid layout all over again if the part model changes? Other areas of Mastercam have associativity but this doesn't. Apparently CNC Software doesn't think associativity from part to drawing is important. What is the logic of having tool holders defined with machining parameters rather than with a tool definition? Why is there no quick and easy way to show all the wireframe geometry associated to a solid model?  Its been well over ten years and yet Mastercam still isn't able to properly chain a solid model!  

CADCAM Technology Leaders Group On LinkedIn: 

I want more discourse than a blog allows so I've started a new LinkedIn group called CADCAM Technology Leaders. It's already has close to 500 members and it's very active. If you wish to join the group and start a discussion or comment you must be prepared to state in detail why you think what you wish to discuss is leading edge CADCAM technology. It's not a group for product fanboi's. It's group for those that can be objective:

http://tinyurl.com/7rhka97

Here are the rules I've established for CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn:

Comments should explain in sufficient detail why the technology you are discussing is a leading edge technology. Comments like "xyz CADCAM is the best!!!" or "abc CADCAM sucks!!!" will be deleted. Fact based comparisons between different products are acceptable and welcome. Here is an example of what I consider to be an acceptable comparison:

"Solid Edge ST has direct modeling tools that allow me to work quickly and easily on non-native solids. SolidWorks has no real direct modeling tools and I find Solid Edge ST much better because our shop mostly works with non-native solids."



No personal attacks of any kind will be permitted.