wish list for SLA upgrades
From:
Kurtis Anliker (Hughes Air Warfare Center)
Date:
Thursday, January 19, 1995
From: Kurtis Anliker (Hughes Air Warfare Center)
To: RP-ML
Date: Thursday, January 19, 1995
Subject: wish list for SLA upgrades
On the subject of wish lists, here are some new inputs. Although we have
not seen the problems previously stated with beam comp, we have a
substantial list of our own. There will be a book available in the near
future (Sunday before the User Group) for the LOW LOW cost of only 29.99...
Anyway here are some ideas....
1. I dont know if anyone else is noticing this or not, (and rumor has it
that those still slicing in dos will see it more) but on large flat areas of
up facing fills with holes or other similar features, there are steps from
where the laser has jumped to draw in a different location and then come
back. The explaination I received is surface tension, but some of these
"steps" are on the order of .005.
2. There needs to be some major updates done to the VIEW software. I
realize 3D is not micorsoft, but to update part extents you MUST save and
clear the file and then load it back in to VIEW. Changes should be updated
real time, or at least after you hit "save", if you were a writing an
article and the word count and # of pages were not accurate with the current
session and you had to do the SAVE - CLEAR - LOAD to get the updated
information it would be complete unacceptable!!!
3. Updated QUICKCAST for all, I have heard nothing but success from
everyone using this, but it still is not released. One more month is close
enough, I guess, but is does one month mean 1 or does it mean sometime
soon???
4. It would be nice to have a platform outline in VIEW for reference
purposes.
5. Improve the BUILD.LOG file to include more information. Include start
and ending laser powers, and possibly a meaningful average, write out what
.stl files were in the build set, for those do not want this amount of
information, have a flag for just the basic BUILD.LOG instead of the VERBOSE
BUILD.LOG.
6. 3D should realize that there software for the SGI is not the only thing
running on the workstation, and NOT completely reconfigure the machine when
doing new installation or updates. Our SGI runs the 3D software,
bridgeworks, Pro-Engineer, and will soon run Intergraph as well, and I am
sure we are not the only group doing this. Also, the software should key
only to the CPU ID and not to the disk location. It makes it impossible to
run defrag routines, etc. on the workstation to help its performance. We
recently had a hard drive fail, and SGI replaced it with another with the
exact same CPU ID and the 3D software was the only thing that we had to get
new keys for when we restored our backup.
In this world of continuing improvement, efforts put forward on continuing
to update and improve existing software and look for ways to improve part
accuracy would certainly be appropriate (we have a good handle on X and Y,
but we are working in 3D). I personally dont think that in such a limited
market with two existing competitors with good products that another support
generator is worth the effort. We do not need an earth-shattering
breakthrough at every User Group meeting. Some of the most beneficial and
time saving improvements could be done with little effort (we will have one
in Tampa to share for the low low cost of free for the asking).
Have a great day and see you in Tampa.
Kurt Anliker
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