Cut Direction dialog

Use the Cut Direction dialog to control the direction the tool cuts when machining surface milling features. Different options are available for different toolpath techniques.

To display the Cut Direction dialog, click the Direction button in the Milling tab of a surface milling feature.

Style

• Unidirectional — Toolpaths go in one direction. For Z-level toolpaths, the conventional/climb mill parameters control the direction. For other toolpaths, the decreasing/increasing controls the direction.
• Bidirectional — If active, the decreasing or increasing parameters control the initial cut’s direction.
• Uphill only — Breaks toolpaths up into segments that increase in Z. If this option is selected all direction parameters are dimmed because Uphill only fully determines the cut direction.
• Downhill only — Breaks toolpaths up into segments that decrease in Z. If this option is selected all direction parameters are dimmed because Downhill only fully determines the cut direction.

Direction of First Pass

• Conventional — Applies only to Z level with Unidirectional. The tool rotates against the direction of the cut.
• Climb mill — Applies only to Z level with Unidirectional. If Climb mill is set the tool rotates in the direction of the cut.
• Decreasing — Forces the cut to decrease in its principal direction. For X-parallel operations, the tool starts at the maximum X value and cut in the negative direction.
• Increasing — Forces the cut to increase in its principal direction. For X-parallel operations, the tool starts at the minimum X value (or Y value for Y-parallel) and cut in the positive direction.

In flowline and isoline toolpaths, if Bidirectional is set, the Increasing and Decreasing options affect only the direction of the initial cut. For 2D spiral milling, you can change the cut direction by selecting the Conventional or Climb mill controls; this option is active only in a 3D spiral toolpath if Unidirectional is selected. For radial milling, use Clockwise/Anti-clockwise to toggle the clockwise and counter-clockwise nature of the radial toolpath. For parallel milling, set Parallel angle to 180 to cut from the opposite end of the part.

Start corner

Choose the starting point for the parallel pass from among lower left, lower right, upper left, upper right. These terms are relative to a top view of the part.