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Foxman
02-07-2007, 02:23 PM
Hey Guys,

I am new to the group. I teach High School Industrial Arts and we have 3 of the CW mills.

Up to this point we have been playing around and using the features to carve some simple designs and place lettering. However, I would like put our mills to production use to make parts for some of the projects the first year woodworking students construct.

As I started doing some simple line construction in the software I began to realize that it doesn't seem to share alot of the characteristics that our other CAD/CAM and CNC software has. So this has prompted me to ask some questions so I know were I stand in learning this new software.

1. Can I construct line segments tangent to circles?
2. For some reason I can't seem to get the end of the lines to even attach to the "Vertex" or red dot of the circles. This is usally a "Ortho Snap" feature in other programs. Do I have to turn this feature on in CW?
3. Can I break out circles? I can not seem to get the trim function to work for this. This maybe due to the fact that I can not get the lines to snap the circles orignally.
4. I am asking too much from this software? I see when you zoom in that the images do not stay to sharp.

Is there a tutorial book, or project book that will step me through the features of the software?

Thanks for you feed back.

BobHill
02-07-2007, 03:54 PM
Foxman,

Could you give us a sketch or something to show what you are wishing to do?

The vector tools should be able to create normal vector designs as you'd do in any vector program, albeit different tools, perhaps than one is used to.

1. Line segment tangent to a circle. Sure, it's a matter of placement, but, of course it won't be part of a circle as that's a closed loop and like any other vector object you would have to make a break at a Control Point and then attach a line to that point which means you'd no have a circle any more, but would have a straight line with what would look like a circle, except that two points of this "line" would overlap (not join) where the straight line joins where the break in the bottom (of the overlapped points) end point would have been.

2. As previously stated you can't join any line to a "closed" loop (shape) in any vector. You can overlap points of two objects, and can even overlap points of the same object, but can't join them under those circumstances.

3. Instead of using a circle, try using an Arc and close it into what looks like a circle, then join your straight line to it and then pull the other point to overlap where you joined the straight line (as indicated above). Now make the straight line tangent to the circle.

4. So far you haven't asked too much from the software that I can see. I'm not bad at using other vector software, but this one still does give me problems as it's different, certainly, from what I'm used to also. I still haven't seen what Trim and Break is useful for. Neat Red on Trim though, and one of these days I'll do more experimentation with it.

If there is a real tutorial, I'd also love to have it. Perhaps my enlightenment wouldn't come as such a surprise when I learn something new about this one :oops:

Bob