Picking Part Surfaces

• Using the Selection Filter to select surfaces

• Using Sets to display surfaces

• Selecting geometry by criteria

• Creating geometry by switching to the CAD environment

Part surfaces define the area where the milling is to be performed.

Once in surface selection mode (see Access above), there are several ways to select surfaces:

Manually

By Box

Popup menu

Notes:

• In 5X Trimming, pick only the faces to be trimmed (the cutter will move along the edges of these faces and trim them).

• In Flow Line Part Surface procedures, surfaces can only be selected manually!

NC-Lite Note:

• If the NC document was created in NC-Lite, all the part surfaces are, by default, selected to be machined. These part surfaces are added to the Set _NC-Part. If this NC document is subsequently opened in Cimatron E, the surface selection method can be defined in the Preferences under Tools/Preferences/NC/Environment/CAM Mode Interaction.
  Standard is the default option where you pick the surfaces to be machined.
  Auto Part (SET=_NC-PART) shows you that all the part surfaces are automatically selected and enables you to only pick the Ignored Surfaces (the surfaces that are not to be machined).

Manually

Pick surfaces one by one by picking with the mouse. Place the cursor on the desired surface, and the cursor will have the following appearance: . The cursor automatically picks surfaces "closest" to you. To pick surfaces behind or underneath the surface indicated by the cursor, do the following: hold the cursor in place on the closer surface until the cursor changes from to . Keeping the left mouse button pressed, move the cursor until the desired surface is picked.

By Box

To pick a group of surfaces, drag a box with the mouse that includes the desired surfaces. The box does not have to entirely include the surfaces; any surface partially enclosed by the box will be chosen.

Popup Menu

In addition, you can right-click to open the following surface selection popup menu:

• All Displayed: Pick all the displayed entities.

• By Criteria: Pick geometry by criteria.

• Reset Criteria: Reset the criteria groups for the entity type.

• Multi: Enable multiple entities to be picked.

• Reset Selection: Cancel all picked surfaces and start picking them again.

• Finish Selection: Ends the selection mode and closes the dialog.

Notes:

• If you want to define a Part Surface Offset, open the Offset and Tolerance section of the Parameter Tables.

• You can narrow your choices of available surfaces by opening the Selection Filter.

• In 5X Trimming, the Criteria selection options are not available.