The Select Regions tab on the Edit Toolpath Within Region dialog enables you to define the area of the toolpath you want to edit.
This tab contains the following:
Define Region By — Controls how to select the region of the toolpath you want to edit. Most of the Edit Toolpath Within Region dialog is similar to the Limit Toolpath dialog:
- Plane — Selects the region of the toolpath to one side of the specified plane. This works in exactly the same way as Limit Toolpath to Plane.
- Polygon — Selects the region of the toolpath to one side of the specified polygon. This works in exactly the same way as Limit Toolpath to Polygon. For more information, see steps 2-5 in the Point Distribution example.
- Boundary — Selects the region of the toolpath to one side of the specified boundary. This works in exactly the same way as Limit Toolpath to Boundary.
- Whole segments — Selects complete segments of the toolpath. For more information, see the Multiple selection example.
- Pairs of Points — Selects the region of the toolpath between two points. For more information, see steps 3-5 in the Tool axis editing example.
Plane
These options are only available if you have a Define Region By of Plane.
Type — Defines the limiting plane.
- Plane X — Select to define the YZ plane. Either pick a point on the screen using the left mouse button, or enter the X coordinate in the Point frame of the dialog.
- Plane Y — Select to define the ZX plane. Either pick a point on the screen using the left mouse button, or enter the Y coordinate in the Point frame of the dialog.
- Plane Z — Select to define the XY plane. Either pick a point on the screen using the left mouse button, or enter the Z coordinate in the Point frame of the dialog.
- Arbitrary — Select to either pick two points on the screen using the left mouse button to define the normal to the required plane, or enter X, Y, and Z coordinates in the Point and Normal areas of the dialog.
Point — Enter values to define the origin of the plane.
— Click to display the
Position dialog. Use the dialog to manually enter coordinates and locate items in the graphics window.
Normal — The fields display the direction of the normal of the plane.
— Click to display the
Direction dialog, which enables you to edit the direction of an item.
Boundary
These options are only available if you have a Define Region By of Boundary.
Boundary — Select the boundary PowerMill uses to limit the toolpath. You can select the boundary from the list. This option is only available if you have a Limit to of Boundary.
Projection Plane — Select the plane in which the toolpath is limited. Select one of the following from the drop-down list: Workplane, View Plane or Best Fit Plane. This option is only available if you select the Limit to Boundary option.
Side — Determines which side of the plane, polygon or boundary is selected:
- Inner — Selects the inside region.
- Outer — Selects the outside region.
For a closed polygon or boundary it is obvious what is inside or outside. However, this is not the case for a plane. So, each plane has an arrow, normal to the plane, at each corner, to indicate which side of the plane will be selected. The boundary or polygon must be a closed, non-intersecting contour.
Save Selection — Saves the currently selected portions of the toolpath, and adds it to any other portions of the toolpath that have already been saved. For more information, see Multiple selection example.
Clear Selection — Removes all portions of the toolpath from the Saved Selection.