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Part 9 - Machining - continued.
The tool path is now drawn over the sculpture grid. Fast moves above the material are drawn as dotted blue lines. Slow cutting moves straight down into the material are drawn as purple circles (the circle radius matches the tool "R" radius value). Slow cutting moves across the material are drawn as solid blue lines. Fast moves directly up and out of the material are drawn as dashed green circles. In some cases it is possible for a green circle to be drawn directly on top of a purple circle. Note that if the rulers are currently displayed, dotted lines are also drawn at the X=0 and Y=0 coordinates.
After the tool paths are drawn, a "Tool path completed" message will appear. Click on "Ok". VS3D predicts the results of the cutting pass and displays the machining marks on the sculpture grid. Congratulations, you have just created your first machining tool path on a sculpted surface in VS3D !
The Cutting Protocol history window now shows this tool path's parameters. It is possible to "undo" the last tool path by selecting "Undo Cutting Path" from the main "Edit" menu. If the sculpture is now saved via the main "File / Save Relief..." menu, the contents of the protocol history window are also saved to an ASCII (".vsp") file. The file name prefix of the ".vsp" file is the same as the saved sculpture (".vs3") file. The associated ".vsp" file can be used for later reference when actually machining the surface. When a ".vs3" sculpture file is loaded, VS3D also looks for an associated ".vsp" file. If found, the contents are loaded into the Cutting Protocol history window, and the latest tool and tool path parameters are loaded into the appropriate fields.
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