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For suport questions concerning RhinoCAM and RhinoCAM Pro, please go directly to the MecSoft support forum
MecSoft's RhinoCAM Homepage
RhinoCAM tutorials
We have set of 14 tutorials for RhinoCAM available for download.
Each project is tailored to show the user different machining methods and the situations under which these machining methods will be used.
Each download includes the project tutorial file, the design files along with the programmed machining methods as well as the G-code files.
It should be noted that each project was actually machined on a Techno-Isel 3-axis milling machine and proofed out. The G-code files are included in the download. You can run these G-code files if you own a Techno-Isel machine. Care should be taken, however to make sure to duplicate the setups described in the included tutorial document.
Happy machining and please send any comments/suggestions and any other projects that you might want us to include to support@mecsoft.com
Environment Variables
These allow one to set certain options in Visual Mill and RhinoCAM that are not directly accessible via options form inside the program.
Environment variables are settings that stored in WINDOWS and are created/accessed in the following way:
Right click on My Computer, select Properties, Advanced tab, Environment Variables. They can then be added with the New button. These variables may be placed in the User section to have different possibilities for different users, or the System section to act globally for all users.
For more info on using Environment Variables, look here
The following are the current Environment Variables that can be used with RhinoCAM and what they do:
"VMILL_HFINISH_LEVELFIRST" - 1/0 - Allows Level first machining in Horizontal Finishing
"VMILL_ZTRANS_FFACTOR" - [0.1-1.0] – Scales federates for plunge Z motions between Z levels in 2-1/2 axis operations
"VMILL_SORT_PROFILES" – [1/0] – Sorts profiles based on minimum distance to each other if set to 1
"VMILL_DORETRACT_TABLEROTATE" – [1/0] - Does retract to toolchange position before performing the table rotate if set to 1
"VMILL_BEEP_TYPE" - [0/1/2] 0 – Waveform beep, 1 – computer beep, 2 – No beep
"VMILL_LICENSE_HOST" – [IP Address] – Set to IP address of machine that has the network dongle for network licensing
"VMILL_DISPLAYTOOLTIP" - [1/0] - Displays a point at the tool tip during simulation if set to 1
"VMILL_TOOLPATH_THICKNESS" – [0.1-10.0] – OpenGL thickness value for displaying toolpath using thick lines
Using the user defined tool tab to create custom tools
Question - How is the user defined tool tab in the tool definition setup used? Is it possible to generate custom profile tools using this feature in RhinoCam from tool drawings?
Answer - User defined tools can be created and used in RhinoCAM in 2-1/2 axis profiling operations only. To create a user defined tool follow these steps:
1. Draw the profile of the tool in the XY plane (only to the centerline, i.e. half profile)
2. Make sure the starting point is at 0,0
3. Save the file as .mrg (using export region in the file menu). Make sure that this is the only region in the file before exporting. This file will be the tool profile file.
4. In the Create/Select Tools menu – select User Defined Mill tool
5. Select a name for the user-defined tool and enter the relevant information and comments. Parameter for the tool diameter should be twice the profile radius. You can also input a different tool diameter if you need a different size tool. The system computes the tool diameter as the twice largest X coordinate in the tool profile. It will then scale the profile by (input diameter/computed diameter). Example: if the input diameter is same as computed diameter then the scale factor is one.
6. Provide the path to the user-defined tool profile file
7. Save as a new tool
Use the tool in 2-1/2 axis profiling operations.
To capture the active window with an image in RhinoCAM:
ScreenCaptureToFile and ScreenCaptureToClipboard work fine in RhinoCAM to capture the active window with an image of a RhinoCAM simulation. ViewCaptureToFile/Clipboard, do not, however.
How to display a "Tool Guide" in VisualMill:
Go in to your registry, open up HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder , scroll down to the "Software" folder and open it. Next find "Mecsoft Corporation" folder open that. Find the "settings" folder , open it up. Find the "DisplayToolAtCursor" reg_dword, double click it and change the value data from a 0 to a 1.
Now it will display whatever tool you have loaded while making a boundary or creating geometry.