Let’s take a look at new options added to Bounding Box in Mastercam 2021. Bounding Box now allows you to create stock limits using an auto option. This will allow you to take parts that have odd shapes and quickly create rectangular or circular stock that will fit the selected parts as tightly as possible. In practice, you can use this Rectangular or Circular boundary to quickly align the part for milling or lathe operations.
To use these new features, you need to launch Bounding Box from the Wireframe tab.
Then you can select the items you want to apply our bounding box to.
In previous versions of Mastercam, you were only able to produce the box using the construction plane for alignment. You now have an Auto option.
When using rectangle, this will create a minimum material box to the part.
In cylindrical, you will also get a minimum material condition, but you may need to adjust the axis to get the alignment you desire.
The bounding box created can be used with Dynamic Transform or any other manipulation tools, to help in aligning parts to the machining orientation desired.
Additionally, you also have a new option for Wrap. Wrap will allow you to make a silhouette of the part aligned to a construction plane.
There is also have an option for Minimum Volume.
Minimum Volume will produce a tight-fitting form over the parts irregular shape.
This can be also offset to allow extra material to be added to the minimum shape.
This can be useful for roughing complicated parts. You can use the created MESH for bulk material removal and not need to modify the source model to avoid holes and other features on the part.
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