Moving Path Lines

Once you enable path lines and see them on your screen, you can change the route the probe follows as it moves between features. To do this, place PC-DMIS in Translate mode and click on a highlighted path line. PC-DMIS splits the path line near where you clicked and adds a MOVE/POINT command at that location. Use the Move Path Line dialog box to adjust the move point location.

This method only works on the path lines between features. You can use a different method to reposition path lines within Auto features. For information, see "Show Hit Targets" in the "Creating Auto Features" chapter.

If you click on a path line between features and the Move Path Line dialog box still doesn't appear, you may need to enable this functionality. To do this, from the Setup Options dialog box (Edit | Preferences | Setup), on the Animation tab, mark the Path Line Moving Enabled check box. For more information, see "Setup Options: Animation tab" in the "Setting Your Preferences" chapter.

 

Move Path Line dialog box

The dialog box contains X, Y, and Z axis boxes, allowing you to type a specific move point location, or you can use the Increment value with the small up and down arrows next to each axis box.

The selected path line is adjusted automatically in the Graphic Display window.

If you need to adjust the move point later, simply click on the point on the path line. The Move Path Line dialog box appears again, which allows you to change the values for the MOVE/POINT. Alternately, you can press F9 on the MOVE/POINT command inside the Edit window, and then use the Move Point dialog box to change the values.

It's often handy to rotate the part while you adjust path lines. The Move Path Line dialog box permits you to do 2D and 3D rotate operations with the standard Alt + right-click drag and Ctrl + right-click drag methods, respectively.

The only way to remove a path line modification is to delete the inserted MOVE/POINT command from the Edit window.

Movie Demo

In the small movie below, you can see that the red lines are where the Collision Detection functionality has detected sections of the path where the probe will collide with the part. You can move the affected path line sections and then re-run the collision detection to clear up these problems. Notice how you can add move points and view the new path lines in 3D to verify that the move points were generated in acceptable locations:

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