Benefit vs. cost, was RE: Software Costs

At 09:37 AM 3/17/2003 -0700, Tim wrote:

>looking for more feature rich solutions and frequently will buy a
>package like Vector or Dolphin or even Visual Mill. I think you would be

On the other hand, from my experience with VisualMill Free 3, I don't see a
reason to buy VM4 Basic. The inclusion of only parallel finishing has
basically crippled that version. There is no way I have found to clean
vertical walls on a part that also has contours. The "air cutting" during
roughing I can live with, but why MecSoft did not include an actually
useful finishing method (such as horizontal...) in VM4 Basic is beyond me.

I'm not an Autocad-world person (though I've used it at work for 11+ years)
but I have written macros in VersaCAD (2D) to take contours and output
gcode. I can easily do pocketing, facing, etc. with a minimum of fuss. Is
this not something that could be done in LISP in the freeware Intellicad
2000? (http://www.cadopia.com/download.asp) I realize that there is a
tradeoff between cost and effort ("sweat equity") but it seems that a
cooperative effort could benefit a whole lot of people. (I'll freely make
my VersaCAD macros available, but I don't know anyone who still uses it...)

Best regards,

Randy

Randy Gordon-Gilmore ,----.___________ ______________ _________________
ProtoTrains // = = === == || == == == = || == == == = == =|
Rio Vista, CA, USA /-O==O------------o==o------------o==o-----------o==o-'
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