Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: "FREE" VisualMill

The "free" VM product opens both Rhino and Vector STL files just fine.

<rant>
I can not hold my tongue on this.

I can not believe that a bunch of you are all pissy about what they are
offering and what it does. Who cares what the press release says. If you
believe that crap I have a bridge to sell you. Press releases are very
carefully crafted statments made to sound glorious without blatantly
stretching the truth too far. If you believe press releases than you
probably believe in Santa and that a Craftsman shopvac is really 10 hp.

The download page is totally up front that the free product is time limited
and feature limited. It only says that it will open .stl files and does not
mention .dxf. It does BASIC 3D & 2D tool paths. If you can not make any of
these features work then go through the tutorial. It also does a BASIC drill
cycle. This is a little different and I did not see it in the help or
tutorial. You create circular regions and then select them. VM will place
the drill hole in the center of each circle. It then posts them as a G81
slick as can be.

I really can't believe that any of you want to start bitching to the vendor
that the free product does not do enough. It is unbelievable what it does
for free. Even better it seems solid and completely debugged unlike some of
the non-commercial free stuff out there. Does it do all that the for sale
product offers? Of course not. The idea is to whet your appitite and make
you want to crack open that wallet, knock out some dead moths and purchase
the full version. Does the free version provide useful functionallity, heck
yes.

I am not in any way associated with Mecsoft other than being a customer and
having purchased VM4 so I have no vested interest in defending them. I just
think that many of you are totally off base on this. CNC is a very expensive
hobby. Yes you can save some money by hunting around and doing things
yourself. That still does not make it low costs. Professional grade software
costs real money. Mecsoft is giving you a very usable glimpse at what it is
you pay the $$ for. You can take it and use it to start cutting parts right
now. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, but if you wish real hard Santa will put a brand
new servo driven machine center in your garage and all the top end software
you could ever want on your computer. OK, you can wake up now.
</rant>

Tim
[Denver CO]
Sherline products at Deep Discount
www.KTMarketing.com/Sherline