Variables are symbolic representations of the output generated by PowerMill. You can use any PowerMill variable in the NC Program and NC Preferences dialogs, and in the setup sheet template tags.
You can also use variables in the NC Program Commands/Comments Preferences dialog (accessed by clicking the Comments button on the Toolpath tab under NC Preferences):
This is useful because the resolved variable values can then appear in all your NC program files.
Although the current practice is to enclose variables within braces { }, some variables are enclosed with the percent symbol and square brackets %[ ], as shown in the above example. This is a valid format that is maintained for historical reasons.
You can use a tilde (
) to insert the current name of your home directory.
A list of available variables for your installation is located in the ...\lib\help\parameters\parameters.html file of your installation folder.
You can use multiple variables in a string, for example: %[ncprogram]_%[toolpath]_abc. If the NC Program is1 and the toolpath is MultipleCuts, the output resolves to 1_MultipleCuts_abc.