I have never had the pleasure of visiting Solidworks or CNC Softwares headquarters, but I can only imagine the pressure that exists in those two companies hallways. Imagine at Solidworks secret underground bunker they are cracking code about Autodesk or Siemens revolutionizing new enhancements, or the poor programmer at CNC Software who are trying to get a handle of reverse engineering Esprits latest Multi axis lathe add-on. As all us maintenance paying customers got big expectation to the next more powerful software release, I would appreciate if Solidworks and Mastercam would re-organize some of there “everyday” functions.
Solidworks Extend Entities, You use it? Why?
If you are a new user to Solidworks you might right fully think the answer is pretty straight forward, but I challenge you to do the same extend with the trim function.
“Power trim” and “Trim to closets” will do the same example as the Solidworks help file uses to demonstrate the powers of the “Extend Entities”, the matter of fact is that the trim tool is more powerful at extending than the tool carrying the name “Extend Entities”.
“Corner” will extend and also trim depending on what side of future extended intersection is selected.
“Trim away outside” is also a mighty fine extending option under the right circumstances.
I always recommend new users to spend some quality time getting the handle of the trim tool, it is a very powerful tool that can make work flow smooth when mastered, I just wish Solidworks would organize and maybe make there help files a little more in depth on this kind of topic.
Mastercam…
1st of note to CNC Software, new users have a hard time finding “Trim/Break/Extend” under the standard Windows “Edit” drop down, and I understand it kinda of makes sense that “Edit” is “Edit” but something like Create/Modify as drop down might make more sense.
2nd this is a mess….Trim this and Break that and that…. or how about join entities while closing arcs. I understand that breaking geometry is a necessity in the CAM world, and I am not saying it should be eliminated either..
I believe that things could be cleaned up and there is room on the “Trim/Break/Extend” ribbon bar. The pop-up name when hoover over the different options in the ribbon bar would also be a huge help.
Point is… These tools are as important to a CAD/CAM operator as a hammer is to a carpenter, it is great they can multi task, the point is not that people can not trim or extend there geometry, but that it sometimes takes a couple of tries because it is constructed as a hammer with 2 heads and help files that are not clear enough, could you imagine that a new user could read the help file once and actually from that point never was in doubt if “Power trim” or “Trim to closets” should be 1st. choice. What you think?