Isoline milling

Isoline milling is a good technique for finishing surfaces.

An example of isoline toolpaths on a single surface:

Isoline milling uses the isoline curves of a surface to mill the surface. These curves can be in the row direction or column direction.

Advantages

• Uniform finish with scallop height control. The toolpaths are spaced based on the distance along the surface.
• Nearly-vertical walls handled well. Because this is not a projection technique, nearly vertical walls are cut correctly.

Disadvantages

• Toolpaths generated on a surface-by-surface basis.

Restrictions of isoline milling

Isoline milling works on a surface-by-surface basis. This can result in numerous retracts.

The orientation of the surfaces matters. Toolpaths are generated for surfaces whose normals point up. Surfaces are 'auto-flipped' where possible, but for vertical and some other cases, you must specify the machining side. Select the surface in the list and click Switch machining side. Isoline milling may mill on the wrong side of the surface or if certain flags are set, it may skip the surface.