Swept Cut

[John.Pryal]

Hi all,

i may have asked this question in the past, but did not get an answer. Is it possible to create a swept cut with rounded ends. Think of a 10 diameter ball nose milling cutter, cutting a channel 5mm deep in a flat face, the channel does not go through the whole workpiece, it stops short. Now in the real world this channel would have rounded ends, but in pro-e they are left square using a Sweep Cut, i then have to create revolved cuts on each end to achieve the desired effect. Is there some other functionality within pro-e that could preform this task.

Kind Regards

John

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[DavidButz]

John,

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Many of us have been asking for this for years. It's a bit of a hobby horse for me, personally, and, after recent discussions with other folks who have requested this, I am hoping to write a little "white paper" on the matter soon. For some more discusssion see this thread from several months ago:

http://communities.ptc.com/message/151849

Certainly, for endmills cutting slots into flat plates (flat, ball, dovetail, profile) this functionality could be easily achieved. To do it now you have to do the trajectory sweep followed by revolves at each end. I have referred to this functionality as "swept revolve" in the past, and, since so many real solid parts are manufactured this way, it would be wonderful to have an "endmill" feature.

However, the plot thickens in two respects: (1) as soon as you are cutting with any more complexity than a flat trajectory the geometry gets highly complex instantly (see my screen shot of a grooved barrel cam in the above post), and (2) folks at PTC, fully aware of this desire amongst users, generalize the idea even further to "swept solid", meaning that the geometry is not necessarily the result of rotation of a fixed section around a centerline. This would include operations like gear hobbing with a non-rotating tool.

At the planetptc conference in Las Vegas 2 weeks ago I discussed this issue at some length with two senior product managers at PTC, and, by chance, met two other users who are also vigorously requesting this functionality. The product managers are aware of the need, but also aware of the challenging mathematics and programming that would be involved in doing this for the general case. I wish they could see their way clear to back away from the all-or-nothing view, and start with a "swept revolve" first. This is not simple, but considerably easier than the full general case. It would also probably meet the vast majority of the need, since milling is so common. One could think of it like the series of Parallel to General Blend. It is my impression from my discussions that we will not be seeing this functionality any time soon. Unfortunately.

David

[DavidButz]

This is the illustration; the slot on the right is what is actually generated by an endmill and required for a cylindrical follower.

[VladimirPalffy]

Hello John

Do you try create Swept cut and then at the end create a Full round

Vladimir

[DavidButz]

Vladimir's technique is a clever one in the simple flat-trajectory flat-end-mill cases. The only thing is you have to extend the trajectory by the cutter radius on each end.

[John.Pryal]

Thanks guys for the replies. I thought as much. I agree with you David, why does it have to be an all or nothing attitude, i personally would not need the 3-d stuff, cams etc., i would only ever require the "flat plane swept revolve", just give me this & i would be as happy as a pig in mud, (pardon the expression).

I do sometimes use the "full round" technique as described, but most of the slots i cut are vee shaped with a small radius in the bottom, & adding a full round gives a distorted arc.

Kind Regards

John