Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: FeatureCAM?

Hi Tim:
Even version 4.0 had surfacing...it had some minor quirks but was
certainly workable.
My main complaint was with its usefulness as a design tool.
There were two principal difficulties: first it had no real ability to
select by line colour or any other selection criterion so a complex drawing
was hard to work with.
Second, its ability to generate surfaces meant that you had to work in 3D
space, and the utility to do that was, and remains very cumbersome...not
unworkable by any means, but certainly no joy to use.
Another thing...Featuremill did not import worth a hoot.
The files came in OK and they showed up on screen OK but you couldn't chain
them worth a damn.
So you ended up redrawing the shapes from scratch anyway...a totally
unnecessary waste of time.

I can live with Mastercam..I know a lot of people hate it for it's cascading
menus, but it has all the power I typically need.
I bought my license for about 14 grand...a bit on the high side for your
price range but I was convinced it was worth doing, having run them both
side by side.
I did this in spite of having received Featuremill for free (as an incentive
to buy the Defiance from a dealership that had repo'd the machine and
couldn't find a buyer).

I've downloaded the latest demo of Featureturn...it's very good...much
better than the Master-scam equivalent.
I've used Work NC too...very powerful and very pricey.
A buddy of mine bought into Delcam Powermill: also very powerful and very
pricey.
I'm not envious of either owner...they're good, but not so good as to make
me switch.
I'm not very familiar with the lower end stuff...I know it only by
reputation and from a trial download of Dolphin and Bobcad.
Dolphin was too limited for my use, and Bobcad was hopeless, besides having
to get pretty nasty to get those sales clowns off my back.
The reviews on Vector have been mixed...I've never tried it.
Hope this is helpful
Cheers

Marcus