Reversing Machining Conditions

You can define the complete Manufacturing Program of a symmetrical workpiece, when one symmetrical half of the workpiece is already programmed, easily and quickly.

Related Topics
Procedure for Opposite Hand Machining
Effect of Reverse Machining Conditions
Inserting a TRACUT Operator Instruction
Working with Generic Machine Editor

  1. Open the product containing the first half of the symmetrical workpiece.

    1. Select Start > Machining > Machine Programming.

      A PPR context with an empty Machining Cell is created. An empty Activities Process Tree opens automatically.

    2. Create a generic machine or assign a machine from the database.

      As soon as a machine is assigned to the Machining Cell, a Part Operation and a Manufacturing Program are created in the Activities Process Tree.

    3. Alternatively, open an existing Machining Process or PPR context .

      By default, the Activities Process Tree opens automatically.

  2. Create a Manufacturing Program on the first half of a symmetrical workpiece.

    In our example, we have created the Manufacturing Program on the left-hand part of the workpiece.





  3. Create a new Manufacturing Program that will be used to machine the symmetrical right-hand part. In our example:

    1. Copy Left Program.1 (Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste)
    2. Rename it into Right Program.1 (Edit > Properties).

      The status of the Machining Operations in Right Program.1 is up-to-date.

  4. Click Utilities.

    1. Click TRACUT Operator in the Copy/Tracut Operations sub-toolbar.
    2. Select Right Program.1

  5. In the TRACUT Operator dialog box that appears:

    1. Set the Transformation type to Mirror.
    2. Click the Mirror selection field then select the YZ plane as the symmetrical plane.



    3. Click OK to create the TRACUT operator.

  6. Still in the Utilities toolbars:

    1. Click Opposite Hand Machining Options in the Reverse Operations sub-toolbar.
    2. Select Right Program.1.
    3. In the dialog box that appears, make sure that Reverse Machining Conditions command can be applied to all the Machining Operation types found in Right Program.1.



    4. Close the dialog box.

  7. Still in the Utilities toolbars, click Reverse Machining Conditions in the Reverse Operations sub-toolbar.


    • A message box appears giving the result of the command: number of Machining Operations processed and number of Machining Operations updated.
    • The status of the Machining Operations in Right Program.1 is no longer up-to-date.


  8. Right-click Right Program.1 and select Compute Tool Path in the contextual menu.

    The tool paths of the program are recomputed and the status of the Machining Operations reverts to up-to-date.

  9. Right-click Right Program.1 and select Tool Path Replay in the contextual menu.

    1. Make sure that the TRACUT display mode is set to to take the TRACUT instructions into account. See Replaying the Tool Path.

    The replay shows the result of the opposite hand programming.

  10. Propagate your modifications.

  11. In most cases, the Manufacturing Program needs to be finalized by means of some local editing. Still in the Utilities toolbars, click:

    1. Reorder Operations List to reverse the order of one or more groups of Machining Operations,
    2. Reverse Macros in the Reverse Operations sub-toolbar to inverse the approach and retract macros on a Machining Operation.

    See Procedure for Opposite Hand Machining.