[chmillman]

OK, now having gotten back into it some more, after not having used Surfcam since V3, I am having a few problems getting a couple of things to work as they should. Some things have definitely changed since my last experiences, but there are other things I've just forgotten how to do...

1) Little tweak:
In the OM, the post *category* always defaults to 5 axis, I want it to default to 3 axis. Within the 3 axis category, I have the post I want as default - that I remember how to do in Surfcam.pst, but I don't see any setting in .pst for telling Surfcam that I want the 3 axis posts displayed as a default, nor in options, nor in any of the .ini's (maybe I missed something).

2) Bigger problem:
Verify... has changed a lot since I last used V3... and while I used to think it was actually pretty good back then, I'm now having a hard time with it. I have tried the different modes, currently using the "true solids" setting.

First, it just seems the "lighting" quality (for lack of a better description) is much too flat - it's hard to see what's actually being cut because the horizontal and vertical surfaces have the same uniform gray. I seem to recall that it had more contrast in the past.

Having two monitors, I don't mind that it is now in a separate window (except for the horrible unreadable toolbar icons), it does seem to take a long time to initiate... But, it seems to be playing havoc with my system. The simulations run OK, but after that, while the Verify window is open my whole system gets sluggish and jerky. I have to close out of verify and sometimes even Surfcam to get it to come back to normal. This is neither a CPU nor a memory issue - I have an i7 and 12 gigs of RAM and neither is being taxed at all with this stuff. On top of that, when the problem occurs, there's nothing that looks like it is actually running and taking up resources that could cause such a slowdown.

I therefore think it likely that it's a display/drivers issue. I have a GTX 280 graphics card, top of the line for 3 years ago and still pretty good, it runs every other 3D program I have fine - but it's not an overpriced Quadro.

So I just thought I'd ask - anyone else experience this sort of problem with Verify?

TIA, --ch

[ToyMaker94566]

Since no one is responding, I'll tell you what I think I know. The first issue I believe is set in your Surfcam default template. There are a few things you can tweak that will load every time you start and I believe the 2axis, 3axis and so on are what you have saved in your template. Now I'm not sure if you can tweak the default template or if you must make a new one with a name and change which default template you boot to in your options page.

As for the "Verify" issues, I would be less incline to blame you video card and quicker to blame Surfcam bugs. It was a lot worse in 5.1 and it seems like some problems are corrected but still not bullet proof. You didn't mention what operating system you were running but I'm running Win 7 64. I think Surfware is still making changes to the Surfcam 64 bit capabilities so stay tuned on that score.

[chmillman]

OK, thanks for responding, I haven't been able to find that setting anywhere so far.

In addition to the Verify issues, I an also having a problem with Backplot - it doesn't auto-animate either, I keep having to poke the > button to get to advance a certain number of steps (set by the slider), but isn't it just supposed to run to the end if I want?

I am running Vista x64.

Cheers --ch

[ToyMaker94566]

OK, thanks for responding, I haven't been able to find that setting anywhere so far.

In addition to the Verify issues, I an also having a problem with Backplot - it doesn't auto-animate either, I keep having to poke the > button to get to advance a certain number of steps (set by the slider), but isn't it just supposed to run to the end if I want?

I am running Vista x64.

Cheers --ch

Vista?! Yikes! That operating system has enough issues of it's own, might wanna move to XP or Win 7 IMO...

[chmillman]

Works fine here. I'm a fan of "If it ain't broke don't fix it..." so the OS probably won't get changed until I replace my workstation - far too much work re-installing and configuring everything, it's days of work followed by weeks of tweaking...

Addendum: Installed SC on the computer near the mill today, that one has Win 7 x64 with a Quadro 600 vid card. While SC did feel quit a bit "snappier" on that machine, it also crashed about 10 times today, something which it hasn't done on Vista... Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that I was working with a file on a network server (not local), I would go away and come back and SC would be frozen - have to kill it with Task Manager - so maybe it was trying to autosave and not dealing with the network connection. But I also managed to lock it up just trying to measure something in the wrong CView...

On the Win 7 machine Backplot works fine, and Verify seems faster, again, I don't know if that's OS related or vid card (as SC recommend Quadros, not GeForce "gamer" cards).

--ch

[pcms1965]

SURFCAM Tech Tip: Windows 7 Display

here is the solution to Surfcam locking up in Win7. i had the same problem; no problems since i did this.

[chmillman]

Yeah, always nice when the CAM software manufacturers think that theirs is the only app you're running on your computer and you have to set your computer's display characteristics back to 1995 for their software to work properly. --ch