If you’ve been run the “Check for Updates” command lately then you’ve seen a few new releases come out that I have not announced here. They included the new Drill and Cap Holes commands. These commands are somewhat complecated and untested so I wanted to get gradual feedback as new people found them rather than the kind of inbox-crushing feedback that can happen when I announce them here.
Feedback on Drilling has been pretty good. I still consider it to be a work in progress but it turned out better than I hoped even in it’s current state.
I also added a Cap Holes command that may require explanation. Once you drill your holes, you do not want a parallel or waterline finish operation to recut that hole it a way that may damage the finish or waste machine time. The Cap Holes command will add surfaces to your model to protect the holes from further machining. For some reason, this is one of my favorite new MeshCAM features in a while.
Both of these features are available in the latest Beta release under the CAM menu.
I will likely promote this out of “beta” status int he near future. It will be a part of Version 5 so it will be free for any V5 user.
I have also been adding more code to make inch/MM conversion more intuitive. This remains one of the largest stumbling block for new MeshCAM users so I am slowly going through the program to do whatever I can to make subtle options very obvious.
The latest release also added support for 2D DXF splines and ellipses. The code works with every DXF I have in my test directory but many of them are generated by Rhino which only uses a few of the possible spline and ellipse types. If you have a failing DXF please send it to me.
The biggest thing to be aware of is that all of these changes were the direct result of customer feedback- either the surveys that trial users get or the Customer Experience Program where command usage in the app is uploaded to my server (with your permission). I get lots of feedback in lots of ways and I try very hard to use it to make MeshCAM into the program that people want.