devFoam - FAQ	Back to Browse Tapered Parts
Tapered Parts Cutting wizard: Tapered Parts selection and placement

Tapered Parts Cutting wizard: Tapered Parts selection and placement      Pro  version only     

This wizard includes 5 pages:

• Tapered Parts selection and placement - the actual Panel
• Cutting Path creation - you will create here the cutting path for the 4 axis CNC foam cutting machine
• Optional: Create a Grid cut of multiple instances of selected parts - Here you can create a grid using for each cell the Part(s) you already selected
• Foam block placement and setting - you can place the foam block on the table of the 4 axis CNC foam cutting machine
• Cutting file creation - the last panel, where you can create the cutting file

Using this feature you can Cut 1 or more Tapered parts, modifying for each of them the number of parts to cut, the Scale, the orientation angle and swapping them.

You can have access to this wizard by the 'Cut the selected Tapered Parts' button of the  'Browse Tapered Parts' dialog, or by the button 'Cut' in c Part management dialog.

The following dialog will appear:

Let's take a view at each panel of this page:

Selected Tapered Parts

You can specify and resize here the Tapered Parts you are going to cut.
In the upper side of the panel you can see the list of the actual Tapered Parts.
You can add new Tapered Parts or select 1 (or more) parts and use the following buttons:

• Move Up selected - Move up the selected Tapered part in the list
• Move Down selected - Move down the selected Tapered part in the list
• Add Parts - start the 'Browse Tapered Parts' dialog, where you can select more Tapered Parts
• Remove selected Parts - remove the selected parts from the list
• Swap sel. Parts Sides - swap the Left <-> Right sides of the selected Tapered Parts
• Invert sel. Parts Sides - invert the Left <-> Right sides of the selected Tapered Parts, the same as Swap + Mirror Vertical
• Mirror Vert. sel. Parts - mirror vertically the selected Tapered Parts
• Mirror Horiz. sel. Parts - mirror horizontally the selected Tapered Parts
• Rotate selected Parts -> value - rotate the selected Tapered part of the specified value
• Scale selected Parts -> 1 : value - scale the selected Tapered part of the specified value
• Add more copies of selected Parts: N -  add N copies of the selected Tapered Parts

Placement of Tapered Parts

In this folder you can customize the placement of the Tapered parts in the Foam block.

• Placement in the Foam Block - you can select in this Radio button group the alignment type you prefer, as explained in each button
• Distance from the border: value - you can specify here the distance from the foam block borders of the Tapered Parts
• Part to Part Distance: value - you can specify here the minimal distance from each Tapered part
• Safe placement Mode - if you have complex geometries you can enable this option to be sure they don't interfere each other. Disabling it you may waste less foam.
• Apply placements - pressing this button the placement of the Tapered Parts will be recomputed

Foam block sizes

You can specify here the dimensions of the foam block. They will be automatically enlarged when you apply new Tapered Parts

• Width (sides distance): value - specify the width of the Foam block, the same as the sides distance of the Tapered Parts. This will be set using the sides distance of the first Tapered part, but you can set a different value. Applying Tapered Parts with different sides distance will create parts different from the original one!
• Length (CNC X axe) : value - the length of the Foam block, along the X axe of the CNC
• Height (CNC Y axe) : value - the height of the Foam block, along the Y axe of the CNC
• Minimal Length : read only value - the minimal length of the foam block required by the actual settings
• Minimal Height : read only value - the minimal height of the foam block required by the actual settings

Viewing settings

You can selected here which sides you want to display in the graphic view

Other buttons

• Load a saved cutting project - you can load here a saved cutting project. You can save a cutting project using the 'Save as a cutting project' button included in the last page of the Wizard
• 3D Preview - start the application dev3DView to show you the real 3D shape and placement of the selected Tapered Parts

When you finished to set the right values press the Next button to go to Cutting Path creation page

More info about the picture in this dialog:

• You can Zoom In/Out using the mouse wheel
• Clicking a point inside the dialog you go in 'Distance' mode. When you move the mouse the distance and angle from the clicked point are displayed in the upper/left side. Clicking again a point the Distance mode will exit
• Clicking the right mouse button a contextual menu will be displayed, showing some more features.