[michael.su]

I use Mastercam. I believe the most valuable enhancement ever has been the use of stl files for verification purposes. Previous to this addition, I seemed to be cutting blind to some degree with respect to real life stock scenarios on parts with multiple setups.

How many others out there use this feature?
I would be interested to know what other software packages also make use of this.
The only problem I have with it and I would like to know if it is also an issue in other packages is:
as you move you stock through the operations the .stl file gets bigger and bigger. Eventually it gets very difficult(and slow) for Mastercam to deal with the files because of their size.
There are .stl editors out there that allow you to use triangle reduction to remove excess info and shrink the files considerably (as much as 75%) This cuts processing time considerably.The problem is.... they are targeted for the rapid prototyping market and are extremely cost prohibitive with much more functions than is needed for our corner of the market.
Any thoughts or solutions?

Please let me know if the CAD/CAM package you use would also benefit from something like this. I just want to see how much need there is out there.

[Mastercam User]

I use Mastercam as well. I still have not figured out how to Verify multiple parts on a fixture like a tombstone or how to control the light source. When I place my parts on a fixture the one part I can Verify gets dark and it is hard to see. I spend more time with backplot. The Verify function in Mastercam X2 seems pretty limited to me but maybe it is because I am not using it properly?