B. Ludin

OK - so it's probably time for me to get a spacemouse. Can anybody tell me what the differences are between the classic, plus and plusXT models and whether the additional features are supported by IronCAD? TIA, Beat

OK - I'm probably going to replace my trusty Inspiron 8000 with the new 8500 (1920x1200 screen - you can't have too much for CAD) pretty soon. There are two graphics cards to choose from: - ATi Mobility Radeon 9000 4xAGP 32MB DDR - nVidia GeForce4 4200 Go 64 MB DDR Does anybody have an idea (with a rationale) which one of the two is better? Cheers, Beat

The attached files is a JPEG. Can't find any handles to drag there, I'm afraid...

I'm not sure if that would belong under "Bug Reports" rather. Anyway, here's what I discovered (shame on me, because I've been a beta tester) running IC6.0 build 4553 under XPproSP1: Drop a solid block into the scene, drop a hole onto it and make two linked copies of the hole at a certain distance. Select all 3 holes and activate the triball. Right-click the plane-square, choose "To Point", then right-click a point and choose "Link Here". All the new holes move to the same position (instead of shifting in parallel), namely to the anchor point of the linked copy of the hole that was selected last, as far as I can tell. Worse, all original holes move to the anchor point of the hole that was selected last. Still worse, undo doesn't work. The results vary somewhat, if you create true copies. Try it and see for yourself. Have fun. Cheers, Beat yourself.

I don't think there is a way currently. But I agree, it would be nice indeed if IC would remember the settings (incl. the size).

Dumb question: why not make the key assignments configurable? This could be integrated seamlessly with the Customize...Keyboard dialog such that you can also assign a spacemouse key instead of a keyboard key to a certain function. Or is there a problem with that? Beat

id=quote> A very small company is indeed what I represent. And should I not be able to keep it from growing beyond 20 people, I will probably leave it and found a new one. Clearly, that means that our needs are different and I didn't mean to dispute the arguments brought up previously. I just wanted show that there is also another point of view and point out that companies following a slow-growth strategy tend to be less "successful" in the short term but a larger proportion of them seems to make it in the long run. Also, I'm a molecular biologist and therefore, I'm unlikely to be asked whether I'm proficient with AutoCAD . Cheers, Beat

id=quote> Thanks, Dave. In that case, I certainly prefer STEP, mostly because there are not options to choose from. Beat

id=quote> Dave - it's exactly as described previously, i.e. transparency only works according to the order of the parts in the scene browser. Scott mentioned it and I think Chris is aware of it, too. Beat

Quick question for the Rhino pros on the forum: which is the best format/setting to export parts for Rhino 2? Thanks, Beat

I must say I'm a bit divided over that subject - the original one, not the shirts and the binders . More advertising means a larger user base which can support more developers who could turn IC into an even finer program even faster - theoretically. Unfortunately, experience shows that, as companies grow, an ever larger proportion of the resources flows into administration, and developers (are told to) become less and less responsive to the requests of individual users. I see several of my suggestions incorporated into IC6 and I like that a lot. I doubt this would be possible with AC or SW. And for my part, I don't care (heck, it even gives me an individualist's kick) if I'm one of just a few who use IC. I prefer to see my AA contract money flowing into development of the software rather than into some stupid sales blurb and a semi-naked cyber-chick in a glossy journal. If you have a fine product, word of mouth will lead to much more natural growth, and creditbility is improved, too. IC will probably never put its larger competitors out of the race w/o a massive advertising campaign. But living at the top is always a dangerous gamble, too, and I think the longterm chances of survival are better if IC follows its current path. Just my 2 Rappen, Beat

Tried it on my Inspiron 8000 with GeForce2Go 32MB which is not supported, according to the readme, just out of curiosity Fixes the ghosting and the gradient background problems. However, the red handles remain empty and after exiting 2D function, the sketch plane remains on the screen until the mouse is clicked another time (not a problem at all). Too bad, the transparency rendering limitation/bug renders it useless (literally) for most of my purposes. But I knew that already. Beat

Thanks Eyup. There's a bunch of Spaceballs (hi Mel) and Spacemice on ebay.de. I think it's time for me to get one ... Beat

id=quote> Look again at http://www.d-cubed.co.uk/customers.htm. IronCAD is listed as a customer for the 2D module only. That should answer your question. Beat

"The true 6 degrees of rotational movement would be great..." I'm sure Einstein would have loved to meet you Anyway, spacemouse support sounds like a good idea. I've never used one, though, so it's hard for me to judge how much easier it would make my life. Certainly, having it control the camera would be the first priority. But it might also be interesting if we could use it for the triball. To this end, it would be instrumental to have the spacemouse keys activate motion constraints, i.e. one key for directional constraint (the triball will move along the most prominently actuated axis), a rotational constraint (the triball will turn around most prominently actuated axis) and one or several stepsize constraints. Just my two Rappen, Beat

BobCAD is a version 18, that must be why it's so much further advanced than IC...

Rick - A VERY reliable source? Like their web site, for instance? Have a look... Cheers, Beat

We just bought a Dell Dimension with an ATI 9700TL (not PRO) for our machine shop and it does great. For sure leaves the nvidia4400 in our office desktop in the dust. Now I'm envious of our mechanic - although I must admit that the trusty ol' Geforce2Go in my laptop still does suprisingly well, particularly when taking the 1600x1200 resolution into account. Cheers, Beat

Hi CAM folks We are in the process of purchasing a 8x4" CNC router (a Precix Industrial Series 9100, for those who care). We will do mainly 2.5-axis work in polycarboante sheets, manufacturing custom-designed (in IC, of course) incubators for high-end research microscopes. A typical job will consist of cutting 20-40 nested parts of various sizes. Occasionally, we also want to do some 3-axis work. We're still searching for suitable software that will give high-efficiency at an affordable price. VisualMill seems to be a great program at a low price but is not really geared towards our tasks, lacking suitable functions for creating bridges/tabs, milling open pockets, and automatic trueform nesting. Mastercam Router looks like a very good solution but at over $7K w/o the post-processor and the trueform nesting module, it is currently beyond our budget. Can you make a recommendation on what would be the best solution for us? Can you comment on the following Enroute3 RAMS or any other programs that we should consider? TIA, Beat

Chris - No, you definitely should not get it the wrong way (if you would see me promoting and defending IC in other places, you would know you shouldn't). I was just commenting on your apparent expression of surprise finding that ACIS seems to allow for more robust blending than Parasolid. I certainly didn't mean to rub your nose in anything or to suggest that you should trash parasolid. Of course, if you want to investigate Ashlar's blending techniques in order to improve your own, I certainly wouldn't object, but it's not a top priority for me. Beat

id=quote> Chris - This doesn't surprise me very much. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but Ashlar's Vellum series, which is ACIS-based, probably has the most robust blending in the league - at least they claim so and my personal (but limited) experience supports it. Beat

Neat! Neat! NEAT! Finally, we can place linked parts from catalogs. Thanks. BTW, you can cut the procedure short. You can take any catalog entry (or great one by copy&past or dragging any part/assembly from a scene into a catalog), go into edit mode and either save the part/assembly with the link option active or delete the existing part/assembly and insert another one, again with the link option active. Anyway, the idea is great. Beat

Luckily, our machine shop staff doesn't speak English, so the funny spelling is not that much of a problem :-)

Just right-click on one of the short handles of the triball to create a mirrored link. Works perfectly on all levels (intellishapes, parts, assemblies). As far as drawings are concerned, it probably make most sense to indicate simply that the part exists in a mirrored version also. If the material is anisotropic, you should also define the mirror plane. Having mirrored drawings just creates redundancy. Cheers, Beat

Hi folks, this might be an Inovate question rather, but since the IV forum is pretty quiet and my questions pertain to the differences of IV vs. IC, I thought I'd better post here. We consider buying the VisualMill/IV bundle for our machine shop, so I'm trying to evaluate whether IV will do the job. I've done a quick comparison and found that IV is lacking the drawing environment and the ability to create intellishape advanced features (surface reshaping etc.) and sheetmetal parts. However, I found that it possible to edit the latter two in IV when the parts have been created in IC, which is perfect for our purposes. Now I wonder if there is anything I've missed? Can anybody tell me where I can find a detailed feature comparison of IV vs. IC? TIA, Beat