[LeeWay]

I can tell you that even top shelf software can have glitches and issues with installations. You do not get immediate answers from the support with them either. A few weeks back, I installed SolidWorks or attempted to. It would not complete the install. Tried for days. Gave up. Sent a trouble ticket the first day. One week later I get an email that says they need the install log. Decided to take one more stab at it and then it worked for some reason. So, no need to contact them back. I found out that I wasn't the only one that experienced similar issues. Of course, not everyone does.

I have other software that is supported well and I count Dolphin as one of the better ones in this area. They have always taken care of any issues I have had. What more can you really ask for.

The bug in the sim software isn't in the Dolphin side I don't think, but in the ModuleWorks side of it. That is how I understood it. With a one button work around, I am satisfied with it. You can't tell by looking at the simulation or seeing any crashes whether it is inches or metric.

[mmoe]

I can tell you that even top shelf software can have glitches and issues with installations. You do not get immediate answers from the support with them either. A few weeks back, I installed SolidWorks or attempted to. It would not complete the install. Tried for days. Gave up. Sent a trouble ticket the first day. One week later I get an email that says they need the install log. Decided to take one more stab at it and then it worked for some reason. So, no need to contact them back. I found out that I wasn't the only one that experienced similar issues. Of course, not everyone does.

I have other software that is supported well and I count Dolphin as one of the better ones in this area. They have always taken care of any issues I have had. What more can you really ask for.

The bug in the sim software isn't in the Dolphin side I don't think, but in the ModuleWorks side of it. That is how I understood it. With a one button work around, I am satisfied with it. You can't tell by looking at the simulation or seeing any crashes whether it is inches or metric.

If it were in the Module Works side of things within the simulator, the same bug would be showing up on 90% of the rest of the CAM industry as well, and I haven't heard of or experienced anything wrong with the MW simulator in a very long time. I work in metric mostly on a different system that also uses Module Works so I have not had any issues at all, but when I try to get the sim to glitch using small inches based tools, I don't get any problems either. I'm fairly certain there is something wrong with the implementation.

What can happen is any number of issues with passing information between the CAM package and the simulation that aren't quite meshing right. It will probably be some growing pains for Dolphin to get it set up seamlessly, but it should be worth it in the end. It may be on the MW end of things if they have been contracted to integrate the system for Dolphin, but the simulator itself appears to be working fine elsewhere, which really seems to point to the specific integration here.

I do really like the "Surfaces Defined by Two Curves" strategy and have considered buying a Dolphin license just for that, but have not tested it enough to know if it will quite do what I'm hoping (I really want to machine a surface I've already generated using the two curves as guides, but it may not work that way). If they continue to work with Module Works beyond the simulation and bring some of what are really at this point industry standard toolpath strategies into the system, I think they'll develop Dolphin into an even more competitive CAM system with a different take on the interface and some proprietary approaches that make it unique. They may not plan on taking it that far, but I hope they do.

[LeeWay]

They could have meant that the integration was not as seamless as it should be, but someone was looking into it. That is how bugs get fixed. Dolphin can do very simple parts or very complex ones. I haven't tried any threading yet, but that will come. The newer import features are getting better too. I think they are moving in the right direction.