Today, I'll show you how to export the results of a cam simulation to an STL
file and then load that STL file as a new body and use that new body as the stock
material for a second setup. This part has two setups the first setup is for
operations in the back side of the part where the second setup has
operations the front side of the part.
Rotating the part to the back side we can see that the stock material is set
to a relative box, slightly larger than the actual part. First, perform
simulation on the back side to produce the stock material for the front side. We
can jump to the end of all of the toolpath by selecting this icon. To save
the STL file of the simulation, first right click on the background and go to
Stock -> Save Stock. We'll call this stock2. And press Save. Close out of the
simulation and switch to the modeling environment. In the modeling environment
select Insert -> Insert Mesh and select the STL file. Leave the units is the same
as the units of the model. And this imports a mesh body.
We won't be able to use this for stock yet.
We first have to convert this to a Brep. Select New Body as the operation and press
OK and we can now delete the mesh body. We'll change the name of the newly created
Brep to stock2 and turn it off. Now switch back to the cam environment.
Just for comparison,
we'll look at the stock for setup two, which was originally a relative size box. But
this doesn't show the contour operations that have already taken place nor does
it include the drilling operations that were performed in the first setup.
Edit setup two, select Stock change from Relative Size Box to From Solid. Now we
have to select the solid that is our stock
expand out the list of bodies and select stock 2 and press OK. We can already see
that the contour from the first setup has been performed and the drilling
operations have been performed as well.
Select Simulation and press Play. And let's turn off transparency on the stock
We can see that hole that was performed in the first setup.
Let's speed up our simulation just a little bit.
You see a glimpse of another hole.
And now it's fully exposed. Switch the transparency back on.
By taking the simulation results from a previous setup and saving that as an STL
file, loading that back in and producing a stock body for the next setup, we're able to
improve the collision detection and machining operations.