Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

Today we will discuss a new Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box enhancement and review the built-in dynamic push pull technologies. In X9, the bounding box feature was enhanced, allowing you to drag out the box envelope in each direction independently. However, the center point option only created one point in the 3D center of the volume. Now in 2017, activating the center point option creates additional points in the center of all faces. Below, we have a solid model on the screen and the goal is to set up operations to machine holes on five sides. While the model is aligned flat to the Mastercam base plane set, it is not in the orientation we want for machining, or positioned correctly relative to the origin.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements
We can use the Bounding Box command to generate points, which will be used to create the new WCS and set all the machining origins. Preselect the part and then go to the Wireframe Ribbon tab and into the Shapes area, and select Bounding Box.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements
Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

The command controls appear in the sidebar and there is the option to modify the box size, either by changing these values, or by clicking on a face to activate a push pull arrow.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

In this case, we don’t need to change the size so we will leave the values as detected and move down toward the bottom of the sidebar. Check the box for Center Point and click OK.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

Note that Mastercam has created points, not only at the 3D center of the volume, but also at the center of each face.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

We can use the points to quickly set the origins of the machining planes.

Mastercam 2017 Bounding Box Enhancements

As you can see, this enhanced capability in bounding box will help make set up for multi plane operations a great deal easier.

Please be sure to sign up for our 2 Minute Tuesday video series to receive tips and tricks like this one in video form every week. More info at the button below.