[moldcore]

So where is it? I’m so tired of the crashes in V5.2 that happen almost every hour. Why have they been advertising it in industry magazines as though it’d been released for the past 2 months? I’m afraid we won’t see it until our maintenance is close to expire and won’t be eligible for the inevitable bug fixes that make any new release usable. The powers that be said they won’t pay one more cent on this software regardless. They want to move on to software that is more popular so they can hire without paying for training.

[Joesph Jackman]

Try sending the attached beta agreement form to [email protected] and ask about getting the beta. I'm sorry to hear that you are not getting good support. I have been happy with their support lately.

we did and never heard from anyone at surfware. surfacam is no longer being considered at our shop. this was not the first time we phoned or emailed and had no response.

[Camfather]

So where is it? I’m so tired of the crashes in V5.2 that happen almost every hour. Why have they been advertising it in industry magazines as though it’d been released for the past 2 months? I’m afraid we won’t see it until our maintenance is close to expire and won’t be eligible for the inevitable bug fixes that make any new release usable. The powers that be said they won’t pay one more cent on this software regardless. They want to move on to software that is more popular so they can hire without paying for training.

Yup, at my current shop, we have surfcam 5.2 and mastercam X6. It was said no more money will be spent @ Surfware for numerous reasons. Even though I am highly fluent in surfcam and know nothing about mastercam, I had no choice but to agree with them. The support just hasn't been there...

[body2]

Surfcam 6.0
SURFCAM 6 to Showcase at SolidWorks World 2012
First it will still come out a beta version, and then there for May / June is the final version comes out.
These images taken from facebook pray of Surfware.

New Features

A 64-Bit Version
New Tools and Material Database Engine
Faster Verification Technology
Updated Interface
Completely redesigned Help System
Four new toolpath strategies
Updated CAD translators to latest CAD systems (plus RHINO CAD translator now included)
Updated Post Processors (MPost and SPost)
Updated Integration to FARO and MicroScribe Arms
Newest Version of EditNC included
Enhanced calculator for TRUEMill toolpath parameters
Refined TRUEMill toolpath algorithms
Plus much more.

[Camfather]

Surfcam 6.0
SURFCAM 6 to Showcase at SolidWorks World 2012
First it will still come out a beta version, and then there for May / June is the final version comes out.
These images taken from facebook pray of Surfware.

New Features

Plus much more.

The rest of the stuff should of already been in place, the much much more I AM interested in........ :bs:

[machinster]

The rest of the stuff should of already been in place, the much much more I AM interested in........ :bs:

Whenever you read ad copy and the statement "Much More" is included after a list of features, always read it as "And Thats All"...

Going all the back to the 80's and comparing SurfCam to their competition, I think SurfCam had good software, unfortunately SurfCams biggest problem has always been that they were "Out Marketed", especially by MasterCam.

In the old days MCam was virtually free, every machinist had a copy on their computer many of those bootleggers turned into registered users, the marketshare was insurmountable for SCam. I tried to tell SurfWare to give their package away too but they just laughed...

Its impossible to stay ahead or even keep up with your competition when they have 10 times the resources.

Just my view of the industry...

[mariojl]

Undo? What’s that? How dare you make a mistake. Seriously, having an unlimited undo would be a great improvement. Right now there are some commands that allow undo but 99% of the time that button is grayed out. I think the #1 command I’d like to see an undo in that currently doesn’t is Extend/Trim. Too many times I’ve tried to extend a line only to have it pick the surface (and by doing so it untrims the surface) because you can’t tell what you’ve picked until it’s too late. Save, Save, Save I know, but it’s just one more reason why Surfcam needs an update.

You have two ways to overcome this issue; when working with many different elements too close to each other, use the Mask feature, (you know this of course) otherwise SURFCAM will pick the higher ranking element (surface, spline, circle, line; in that order more or less); but if you don’t, and extend the unintended surface, you're able to retrieve the original surface by selecting “Undelete Last”.
Let me explain it, when either you extend one or joint two surfaces, SURFCAM doesn’t modify the original, it creates a new surface with the requested feature and deletes the “original surface”. This works in several commands, like Extend, Joint, Break, Trim.
You may try this: pick any surface, “Extend” it by some amount, lets say .200“, edit the color of this surface, and then select “Undelete Last”; you’ll retrieve the first surface in original color.
I know that the Undo function will be nice, but in case of a mistake, or picking the wrong side of a surface, this procedure will bring you back in a matter of seconds. Then you'll never have the feeling to be late again.
Kind regards
Mario

[Camfather]

You have two ways to overcome this issue; when working with many different elements too close to each other, use the Mask feature, (you know this of course) otherwise SURFCAM will pick the higher ranking element (surface, spline, circle, line; in that order more or less); but if you don’t, and extend the unintended surface, you're able to retrieve the original surface by selecting “Undelete Last”.
Let me explain it, when either you extend one or joint two surfaces, SURFCAM doesn’t modify the original, it creates a new surface with the requested feature and deletes the “original surface”. This works in several commands, like Extend, Joint, Break, Trim.
You may try this: pick any surface, “Extend” it by some amount, lets say .200“, edit the color of this surface, and then select “Undelete Last”; you’ll retrieve the first surface in original color.
I know that the Undo function will be nice, but in case of a mistake, or picking the wrong side of a surface, this procedure will bring you back in a matter of seconds. Then you'll never have the feeling to be late again.
Kind regards
Mario

Simply clicking "undo" if it was available would save 100's of man hours in training....

[Camfather]

Whenever you read ad copy and the statement "Much More" is included after a list of features, always read it as "And Thats All"...

Going all the back to the 80's and comparing SurfCam to their competition, I think SurfCam had good software, unfortunately SurfCams biggest problem has always been that they were "Out Marketed", especially by MasterCam.

In the old days MCam was virtually free, every machinist had a copy on their computer many of those bootleggers turned into registered users, the marketshare was insurmountable for SCam. I tried to tell SurfWare to give their package away too but they just laughed...

Its impossible to stay ahead or even keep up with your competition when they have 10 times the resources.

Just my view of the industry...

:wave::banana::cheers:

[moldcore]

You have two ways to overcome this issue; when working with many different elements too close to each other, use the Mask feature, (you know this of course) otherwise SURFCAM will pick the higher ranking element (surface, spline, circle, line; in that order more or less); but if you don’t, and extend the unintended surface, you're able to retrieve the original surface by selecting “Undelete Last”.
Let me explain it, when either you extend one or joint two surfaces, SURFCAM doesn’t modify the original, it creates a new surface with the requested feature and deletes the “original surface”. This works in several commands, like Extend, Joint, Break, Trim.
You may try this: pick any surface, “Extend” it by some amount, lets say .200“, edit the color of this surface, and then select “Undelete Last”; you’ll retrieve the first surface in original color.
I know that the Undo function will be nice, but in case of a mistake, or picking the wrong side of a surface, this procedure will bring you back in a matter of seconds. Then you'll never have the feeling to be late again.
Kind regards
Mario

Thanks Mariojl!
That’s a good tip to know. No one had ever told me that before but I’d seen that on occasion when another surface was created when it should have just trimmed it. Interesting, never thought that was intentional. Just one more reason that the interface needs to be brought up to date. I use the mask function a lot because of the way Surfcam pick things. Most programs today have a more intuitive method for selecting entities such as highlighting before picking. Surfcam should have the option to change the order of selection. I’m sorry, but Surfaces should on the bottom of the order with the entities that form the borders, i.e. lines, splines, circles, etc. on the top. I do keep surfaces on a separate layer for this very reason.

[lapuser]

Went to see V6 at the Barber Sports Museum yesterday. Yes delete is still not there and when I asked about it I got some stupid answer, as the guy who is telling me this has his eyes rolling back in his head, that the excuse is there is to many legacy problems to solve to do this. Yes it appears all the actual users and support people hate this but---no change. Yes he admited every one else does this but Surfcam. Now he did say that they have some kind of formula for determining what gets fixed and it is based upon the number of complaints. Perhaps it is time to flood them with complaints on this both in Public and in private direct with the company. I am looking at probably renewing my old seat here and no undo is a big problem for me.

So I am telling Surfcam publically that this is a big deal for users and real stupid to say no change is coming because we don't feel like dealing with our legacy stuff.

There will be no feature recognition so you will still have to pick and sort hole sizes by look for size and how this will work for tapped and not tapped I don't know. Certainly is bad when compared with Camworks and Featurecam and HSMWorks which are three others I have looked at recently.

They did not talk about Lathe at all and no one asked either. I assume this means that Surfcam continues perhaps ten years or so of nothing new for lathe users. I am also assuming that users have given up on this as with 50+ people there you know darned well some lathes are in use.

I like the tool paths and I have always felt that the tool library and prompts for tool path strategies were the best I had ever used. This stays pretty much the same and that is good. There are some nice looking toolpaths in there although some like the new 3axis radial I see no use for. 4 and 5 axis has always been a strength in Surfcam I have been told by others. I have not used these but what I saw in the demo appeared to back these claims up.

Verify looked pretty good but what really looked good was the amount of time it took to regen tool paths on some fairly complex parts. The Surfcam I remember took forever to do this sometimes and watching the demo guy confidently redo toolpaths with full expectation he could do this in a limited time frame was nice to see. 64 bit has made a difference.

One of the strange things there was when users were asked about Truemill and how many were using it. Very few hands went up and I don't get this. SpaceClaim was also there and they showed a few very basic direct edits and I am listening to some of these guys ooh and ahh over this and wondering what rock they live under to A, have Truemill and not be interested enough to try it and B, what world are they living in that they have never seen a direct edit move done before. Kind of weird.

The broken link for Faroarms is fixed finally but will only work for USB style arms. I had kept my old seat of Surfcam just for the Faro interface and was not aware that this had been screwed up. There is a serial port to usb port convertor out there you can plug into though so I think this is not a problem if you own a Gold Faroarm like I do for instance. I watched the Faroarm guy collect points and make surfaces with the piss poor cad inside of Surfcam so even though cad is terrible you can do very good things with a Faroarm and it beats the heck out of spending the $10,000.00 plus for Faros outrageously priced software. I will be renewing my old seat of 2.5 axis solely for this if nothing else.
What may be more important is just like SolidEdge has done in the past few years Surfcam now may have a couple of individuals outside the Deihl family who are wholeheartedly commited to making the right changes and are doing so. They are hiring more developers and intend to work on stuff which was not defined however.

Basically I left feeling that for the first time in years Surfcam was becoming worthy of another evauation. I don't like some of the lacks mentioned above but they have gotten my attention.

[moldcore]

Did they have any Idea when V6 is going to be released? I first viewed a demo 4 months ago, it’s been advertized in all the trade magazines for the past few months and it still has not been released. I swore up and down that V4 was going to be my last and was talked into getting V5 because “Surfware was turning a corner and hiring more developers”. V5 is a piece of crap that crashes everyday hour that only runs on 5 year old workstations. I’m afraid by the time V6 is released my maintenance will have expired and won’t be eligible for the inevitable bug fixes that are needed for every new release.

[mariojl]

Hi moldcore
You're welcome, I try to help whenever I can.
As far as I know, beta testing has ended and final release build is being prepared, and don’t worry, for I see you’re on maintenance now, so you’ll receive SURFCAM 6.
Kind regards
Mario

[lapuser]

They were figuring that V6 would be available for users to download 6-29-12. They also said that if your maintenance was current at some point in time in February you would be eligible for V6. Now I assume that would be the first iteration of it only but don't know that for sure but at least you get into V6. I will say that a few times during the demos in regening this one part it crashed with no warning and was quick to disappear. It was during one specific Multi something type of tool path. I tried to find the exact name but was not successful tonight doing so. Other than that glitch though it all went well. Who knows until the users get it though what it will really be like.

[moldcore]

Hi moldcore
As far as I know, beta testing has ended and final release build is being prepared, and don’t worry, for I see you’re on maintenance now, so you’ll receive SURFCAM 6.
Kind regards
Mario

I’m not worried about getting version 6, that’s a given, what I’m worried about is getting a version that actually works. Everyone knows that the first release of any software is always buggy to the point that it shouldn’t be used for production. If my maintenance expires before the bugs are fixed with a patch I’ll be stuck with another P.O.S. like V5.2. Surfware needs to step up to plate and start producing hits, not vaporware. It's July 4th 2012 and still no release date...

[mariojl]

As of yesterday, Surfware has anounced the realese of SURFCAM 6.
Kind regards.
Mario

[moldcore]

As of yesterday, Surfware has anounced the realese of SURFCAM 6.
Kind regards.
Mario

I suspected something was up because I noticed today their website has been updated but there is no news on the website yet. Maybe Monday. I Tried my old password to see if I could download it but it doesn’t work anymore.

[mariojl]

That's rigth, user and password have been changed, you must call your reseller to get the newone.
kind regards
Mario

[moldcore]

Still no announcement on their website.

[mariojl]

That's rigth, it may take a couple of days to update the site, but SURFCAM 6 is already available.
Kind regards
Mario