Weird behavior in the 2D Geometry tab: Mouse offset?

Now back in the "2D Geometry" tab, I select "profile by points" and try to create a polygon. When I left-click to drop a point, the point is offset in both the X axis and Y axis. The offset is not the same everywhere in the view. If I'm on the far left top area of my part, the point has little Y offset, but the X of the point is right in the middle of the part (half a screen to the right). If then go to the far right top of the part, the point is about 3/8" down and 3/8" left of where the mouse is pointing.

I use the grid display when I'm doing this. If the view is rotated at all, the grid display is useless, so I always hit the button at the lower left to give me a dead-on orientation to the top of the part FIRST I mention this because it's almost as if Sprutcam thinks the view is slightly rotated.

In order to use some of the features of Sprutcam, it is necessary to draw closed polygons on or around a part, but with this unpredictable offset, I simply can't. It's almost as bad as trying to sign one's name while a child is yanking on your pen hand.

Any ideas on what could be going on? Anyone? For info: This is Sprutcam 7 Pro, Version 7, Build 1.6 rev 63462. I purchased it with my mill, and it is not a trial or student version.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-Mark

More details... It seems like perhaps Sprutcam is scaling the mouse's offset from the origin on the part. This would be why, when I'm close to the origin, the offset seems small, but when I'm far away, it's big. Like maybe 1/2 the distance. From other tabs, I think I've been able to verify that SC knows the dimensions of my part, and it doesn't seem to "scale" mouse motion anywhere but in 2D Geometry.
Anyone else see anything like this? Or better yet - how can I fix it?

-Mark

Hi Mark That sounds weird.
I just checked and saw none of what you describe. Mine is a bit older rev. 53082

It drops points right where the mouse is.
The view stays exactly the same from tab to tab.

Have you tried turning "snap to grid" off and use smart snap or any other method.

Sorry I could not be more help.

Scott

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scott_M

Hi Mark That sounds weird.
I just checked and saw none of what you describe. Mine is a bit older rev. 53082

It drops points right where the mouse is.
The view stays exactly the same from tab to tab.

Have you tried turning "snap to grid" off and use smart snap or any other method.

Sorry I could not be more help.

Scott

---

I'm going to experiment with a couple of things, and that's one of them. I'm also going to look into the description language for the 2D Geometry objects. (another thread here) I think that works, it's just a bit cryptic. Any ideas are welcome, though, so thanks.

-Mark

Well, I found out a little. More importantly, I found where to find more on this description language. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my problem.

The problem seems to be that SC is "scaling down" the offset of the mouse from the origin. When the 2D Geometry tab is active, there is a small indicator in the lower right that shows where SC thinks the mouse pointer is in the X and Y.

So to get a reference to my part, I go to 2D Geometry and define a couple of points in the Sprutcam source "Debugger" window.

P11=X(-8),Y(0),Lr1
P12=X(-8),Y(-4),Lr1

(These lines define points at (-8,0) and (-8,-4) and puts them on layer 1. That makes them visible. If I put them on layer 0 (Lr0), I won't see them unless I click right on them.)

If I hover over P11, the indicator at the lower right correctly indicates that I'm at (-8,0), and if I hover over P12, it correctly indicates that I'm at (-8,-4). However, if I hover slightly below P11, at say Y(-0.2), now it says I'm at X(-4.22). In other words, if the pointer "snaps" to a manually created point, Sprutcam correctly figures the offset from the origin. If I move off in only one axis, it appears that it's scaling the offsets to slightly more than 1/2. This occurs in X and Y.

What's going on, here? Is there some obscure setting somewhere that causes SC to do this? I'd really like to get back to making parts.

-Mark

Hi Mark

Have you run this past Eric at Tormach ?
Does this only occur with the file you are working on, or all files ?
Would you want to post the .stc file for others, to see if happens to them as well ?

Scott

Sure sounds like a snap to grid issue.. The user interface on SprutCAM is really bizzare at times, especially the geometry area.

Sent from my GT-P5113 using Tapatalk HD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scott_M

Hi Mark

Have you run this past Eric at Tormach ?
Does this only occur with the file you are working on, or all files ?
Would you want to post the .stc file for others, to see if happens to them as well ?

Scott

---

I'll be emailing Eric.
This occurs on multiple files.

Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately :D ) working with SC is not my day job, and the computer I do this on is at home. I've brought the SC dongle to work and installed SC on my work machine, but I had some trouble with that.

So I'm back to using SC on the home machine only. One problem at a time.

I think what I'll try to do is create a simple test project and see if I can reproduce the problem. If so, I'll post it here.

-Mark

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kevinro

Sure sounds like a snap to grid issue.. The user interface on SprutCAM is really bizzare at times, especially the geometry area.

Sent from my GT-P5113 using Tapatalk HD

---

I tried turning on/off various "snap" options, but no joy. I think a key clue is that the position of the mouse, as reported by the status bar at the lower right corner, is off by a factor of about 1/2. That's what led me to wonder about some obscure setting somewhere.

-Mark

:confused:

It seems that people have been reading this thread, but nobody has experienced the problem. Post the file, you say? I'll do one better.

The problem starts as soon as I import the ".igs" file. It can be found here:

CNCGUNSMITHING - www.cncguns.com - Downloads

To get the file, scroll down the page to the header "Solid Model *.igs Files". In the drop down, select the "AR-15 Lower Receiver".

Steps for me to reproduce the problem on my setup:
1. Start Sprutcam with no project loaded. (or select File->New)
2. File-->Import, select the ".igs" file that was downloaded.

Now the project contains the imported model. I go to the model tab, select the part, go to "translate", then rotate it and re-zero. The original model has the receiver pointing upward and has the origin located at the middle of the right side in that view. I rotate it 270 degrees in the Z axis, then translate the origin so that it's in near top left in that view.

Go to the 2D geometry tab. As I move the mouse around, I can see (in the X and Y status box in the lower right) that Sprutcam reports the offset from the origin to be a hair more than half of the real offset.

I can verify that SC "knows" the actual size and scale of the part by hand-entering data for points and lines. (In the text box along the left edge. See "Environment of 2D Geometrical Constructions" in the help file for info on "conversational" programming this stuff.) In the "interactive" mode (moving and clicking with the mouse) however, the offsets are somehow scaled, making it very difficult to create anything correctly.

Why would this be "scaled" in this way? I've actually done test runs of the partially complete project, and everything is mostly turning out right. I just need to create things in 2D geometry to constrain some operations and optimize others.

Anybody?

Bueller?

Bueller?

-M

Hi Mark

I opened your file in Solid Edge. I did not see anything odd about the model.

I then opened it in SprutCam and Transformed it as you instructed.
I then played around a bit in 2D geometry, drawing stuff with "snap to grid" on with grids set to .1"
Everything behaved as expected. I watched my lower right axis DRO's and they would snap to grid points exactly where expected.

I have attached my stc of the test.

I am not sure what to say. You really should talk to Eric about this. It sounds like some sort of scaling is going on in the background. Have you checked all the settings for your mouse? Can it scale input? Maybe the mouse itself is flaky. Try a different mouse?

Scott

Hi Mark, I sent you an email.
Gerry

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scott_M

Hi Mark

I opened your file in Solid Edge. I did not see anything odd about the model.

I then opened it in SprutCam and Transformed it as you instructed.
I then played around a bit in 2D geometry, drawing stuff with "snap to grid" on with grids set to .1"
Everything behaved as expected. I watched my lower right axis DRO's and they would snap to grid points exactly where expected.

I have attached my stc of the test.

I am not sure what to say. You really should talk to Eric about this. It sounds like some sort of scaling is going on in the background. Have you checked all the settings for your mouse? Can it scale input? Maybe the mouse itself is flaky. Try a different mouse?

Scott

---

Scott -
Thanks so much for doing that. I just downloaded your project file, and the problem persists. So there is definitely something going on with my configuration. I really appreciate the confirmation.
It's really baffling. The only place I've had any trouble has been in this one particular area of this one particular program. I have to admit that, on this machine, I don't do very much other than Alibre, Sprutcam, email, and web access. I guess it's time to test drive other things I have installed.
Thanks again. I appreciate your taking time to try it out. I'll be sure to post here when I figure it out.
-Mark

I have had a problem with Sprutcam in locating zero, rotating the axis seems to work ok but if I try to relocate zero to the center of the part, the z axis gets off and each time I try to relocate zero it gets farther off with each attempt.

To make it work I go back to Rhino and change the axis in the drawing so that z is up and that fixes the problem for me when its imported into Sprut, why it has this quirk i dont know, but it has happened on several files.

Hello Mark.
The problems you describe here may relate to the "Pespective projection" option. Please open the <Setup> window, select the <Visualization> tab and check the state of the <Perspective> box. If it's checked, uncheck it and close the Setup window by pressing <ok>. After you doing this SprutCAM will use the <Orthographic> (Parallel) projection view.

Historical note.
The Perspective projection is a feature that was introduced to SprutCAM many years ago. It makes your graphic view look like a 3d game world: the farther the objects are from your viewpoint the smaller they look. This mode is quite useless and questional in CAD/CAM applications. so nobody in the development team even use it, so there may be bugs that appear only in this mode.

-Vitali

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mike sr1

I have had a problem with Sprutcam in locating zero, rotating the axis seems to work ok but if I try to relocate zero to the center of the part, the z axis gets off and each time I try to relocate zero it gets farther off with each attempt.

---

Mike - each time you change the origin, Sprut remembers the change and wants you to make subsequent changes as offsets from the last change. For example, if you have a 1x1x1 cube that is origined at 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 and you tell Sprut to transform the origin to Xmin, Ymin, Zmax it will then consider the origin to be at the part's 0, 0, 1 coordinates. To change it back to 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 you would need to do a transform of X = 0.5, Y=0.5, Z=-0.5. If you do a transform of X = 0.5, Y = 0.5, Z = 0.5, Sprut will place the machine origin at the parts's 0.5, 0.5, 1.0 coordinate. Does that make sense?

Mike

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MichaelHenry

Mike - each time you change the origin, Sprut remembers the change and wants you to make subsequent changes as offsets from the last change. For example, if you have a 1x1x1 cube that is origined at 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 and you tell Sprut to transform the origin to Xmin, Ymin, Zmax it will then consider the origin to be at the part's 0, 0, 1 coordinates. To change it back to 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 you would need to do a transform of X = 0.5, Y=0.5, Z=-0.5. If you do a transform of X = 0.5, Y = 0.5, Z = 0.5, Sprut will place the machine origin at the parts's 0.5, 0.5, 1.0 coordinate. Does that make sense?

Mike

---

Yes it does make sense, and thats whats happening to me I think, I usually have this issue when the z axis is off in the drawing (x is where z should be), I will play with it some more with this in mind.
It is just easier to reorient the drawing in Rhino for me and reimport it.
Sometimes it will have the wrong orientation when drawing text in Rhino and exporting it without a substrate, its kind of like Sprut doesnt know what to do with it without the solid workpiece under the text.

thanks for the info Mike.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Live

Hello Mark.
The problems you describe here may relate to the "Pespective projection" option. Please open the <Setup> window, select the <Visualization> tab and check the state of the <Perspective> box. If it's checked, uncheck it and close the Setup window by pressing <ok>. After you doing this SprutCAM will use the <Orthographic> (Parallel) projection view.

Historical note.
The Perspective projection is a feature that was introduced to SprutCAM many years ago. It makes your graphic view look like a 3d game world: the farther the objects are from your viewpoint the smaller they look. This mode is quite useless and questional in CAD/CAM applications. so nobody in the development team even use it, so there may be bugs that appear only in this mode.

-Vitali

---

:banana:

Vitali -
We have a winner! :cheers:

I can't tell you how happy I am to have a fix. I sat down at the computer this morning thinking I was going to have to start uninstalling anything that changed since the time when I was sure everything worked. (I thought it might be nice to have 2 monitors, for example.) That would cast a pretty wide net, since I don't work with Sprutcam professionally. My time to work with SC is shared with a lot of other tasks that I need to do at home.

Many thanks, Vitali! Really. I am back on track.

-Mark