Machining

What You Will Learn With This Use Case

Machining areas are V5 SMG native features used to define different zones on a part.

This use case is intended to help you to manage geometry of a machining area assigned to a surface machining operation.

More specifically, the CAASmiUserOperationWithMA Use Case shows how to:

• overload the geometry tab page of a surface machining operation.
• create a machining area.
• access to the user interactive of machining areas.

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The CAASmiUserOperationWithMA Use Case

CAASmiUserOperationWithMA is a use case of the CAASurfaceMachiningItf.edu framework that illustrates Surface Machining capabilities. It is a part of the sample described in the technical article [1].

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What Does CAASmiUserOperationWithMA Do

The goal of this use case is to define the geometry interactive of CAASmgOperationWithMA, using machining areas properties.

In the geometry tab page of CAASmgOperationWithMA, you can select a existing machining area and set its geometrical components (parts, checks, limit line and forbidden area):

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How to Launch CAASmiUserOperationWithMA

This use case is a part of Surface Machining Operation Sample [1]. You should build all the modules of this sample at a time to be able to launch it [2].

Don't forget to edit the interface dictionary located in:

where InstallRootDirectory is the directory where the CAA CD-ROM is installed, and uncomment the appropriate lines by removing the '#' character.

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Where to Find the CAASmiUserOperationWithMA Code

This use case is made of source files located in the CAASmiConnectUserOperationWithMA.m module of the CAASurfaceMachiningItf.edu framework:

where InstallRootDirectory is the directory where the CAA CD-ROM is installed.

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Step-by-Step

CAASmiUserOperationWithMA is divided into the following steps:

• Implementing CATIMfgGeometryActivity
• Creating a geometry dialog frame

We now comment each of those sections by looking at the code.

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Implementing CATIMfgGeometryActivity

To overload the geometry tab page, we should create an extension class that will implement CATIMfgGeometryActivity:

...
// Tie the implementation to its interface
#include "TIE_CATIMfgGeometryActivity.h"
TIE_CATIMfgGeometryActivity( CAAESmiUserOperationWithMAGeometryEditor);
...

In GetMainPanelEditor, we create a machining area (with CATISmgFactory) and associate it with CAASmgOperationWithMA. Then, we call the geometry dialog frame described below.

  ...
  if (!!spFeatCont)
  {
    CATISmgFactory * pSmgFactory = NULL;
    oRC = spFeatCont->QueryInterface(IID_CATISmgFactory, (void**) &pSmgFactory);
    if (SUCCEEDED(oRC))
    {
      // Creates a empty machining area
      oRC = pSmgFactory->CreateMachiningArea(spMachFeature);
      if (SUCCEEDED(oRC))
      {
        // Link the machining area to the activity
        pActivity->SetFeature(spMachFeature);
      }
      pSmgFactory->Release();
      pSmgFactory = NULL;
    }
    ...
  }

  // Creates the geometry frame
  oFrame = new CAASmiUserOperationWithMAGeometryPanel(iFather,this);
  ...

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Creating a geometry dialog frame

CAASmiUserOperationWithMAGeometryPanel is the frame of the geometry tab page of CAASmgOperationWithMA.

In the constructor class, we build a dialog combo filled with all the machining areas in the model and we add a event notification sent whenever a value is selected in the combo list. Then, we get the default dialog frame of the selected machining area with the CATIEdit interface.

  ...
  // Creates a combo box
  _pDlgCombo = new CATDlgCombo(this,"DlgCombo",CATDlgCmbDropDown);
  if (_pDlgCombo)
  {
    ...	
    // Fills the combo box
    if (!!spFeatCont)
    {
      // Finds all machining areas inside the model
      _pListOfMAs = spFeatCont->ListMembers("CATIM3xFeature");		
      int NumbOfMAs = _pListOfMAs.Size();
      for (int i=1;i<=NumbOfMAs;i++)
      {  				
        CATUnicodeString Name;
        CATBaseUnknown_var spMachArea = _pListOfMAs[i];
        if (!!spMachArea)
        {
          CATIAlias * pAlias = NULL;
          HRESULT RC = spMachArea->QueryInterface(IID_CATIAlias, (void**) &pAlias);
          if (SUCCEEDED(RC))
          {
            Name = pAlias->GetAlias();
            _pDlgCombo->SetLine(Name);
            pAlias->Release();
            pAlias = NULL;
          }

          if (spMachArea->IsEqual(spCurrentMachArea) == 1)
            _pDlgCombo->SetSelect(i-1,0);
        }
      }
    }

    // Adds a callback 
    AddAnalyseNotificationCB(
      _pDlgCombo,
      _pDlgCombo->GetComboSelectNotification(),
      (CATCommandMethod) &CAASmiUserOperationWithMAGeometryPanel::SelectMachArea,NULL);

    // Creates the Machining Area editor
    if (!!spCurrentMachArea)
    {
      CATIEdit * pEdit = NULL;
      RC = spCurrentMachArea->QueryInterface(IID_CATIEdit, (void**) &pEdit);
      if (SUCCEEDED(RC))
      {
        CATDlgFrame * pMAFrame = pEdit->GetPanelItem(this,"MAFrameID");
        if (pMAFrame) 
          pMAFrame->SetGridConstraints( 1, 0, 2, 1, CATGRID_4SIDES);
        pEdit->Release();
        pEdit = NULL;
      }
    }		
  ...

The SelectMachArea method is called whenever a new machining area is selected in the combo list. Here, the default dialog frame is updated with the CATIEdit interface:

  ...
  // Refresh Machining Area Editor
  CATIEdit * pEdit = NULL;
  RC = spMA->QueryInterface(IID_CATIEdit, (void**) &pEdit);
  if (SUCCEEDED(RC))
  {
    // As a frame called "MAFrameID" has already been created, the method GetPanelItem
    // will refresh it
    pEdit->GetPanelItem(this,"MAFrameID");
    pEdit->Release();
    pEdit = NULL;
  }
 ...

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In Short

This use case has demonstrated how to use machining areas with a surface machining operation.

• It first shows how to implement the CATIMfgGeometryActivity interface to overload default geometry tab page.
• Then, it shows how to create a machining area.
• Finally, it describes how to access to default user interactive of machining areas.

We will see now how to compute the tool path of our operation [3].

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References

History

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