a nice water-tight ACIS SAT file should do fine.

Prior to exporting as "a nice water-tight ACIS SAT", I'm actually wondering how to set up the model.
I have designed the project, and layed out the parts to ensure they fit withing a 4x8 boundary with some space between each piece.

What I'm unsure of is the actual model that I export.
Do I boolean out all the parts from a 4x8x3/4" solid?
Or the opposite, boolean the 4x8x3/4" solid so that only the parts get exported?
Do I boolean out a space around each piece?

Thanks again

It really depends on the type of cutting you are doinng. If all of the parts to be cut are 2-Axis then a dwg or iges from Rhino will work fine for MasterCam. Basically with 2-axis cutting the router bit follows a prescribed line that you will identify in MasterCam. If you are machining a surface, (3-Axis cutting) then an IGES will also work.

haze, I think I understand what you are trying to do. Basically you can model the stock sheet (plywood) in Rhino and construct it as a Boolean operation. However MasterCam has a decent drawing program so I would skip the boolean and just import your solid model into mastercam and draw the stock material. From there mastercam will give you the mill paths.

I highly doubt you are using a 3 axis since it's plywood correct?

Haze,

are the parts plain flat pieces?? or are they with a dimensional surface? Dimensional surface stuff in wood is good with a router, if the plywood is of good quality.

if they are plain flat stock cutouts, you need to estimate that you are going to rough out the overall shape of your parts with a speedy bit of some sort. Figure that in your intra part spacing layout. Then they will do a clean pass at the end to give you a nice finished edge. It is generally not a single tooling path operation, they change them maybe a couple times using finer bits towards the end.

Pray if you are using a router that they have a good vacuum table to keep the parts sucked down to the table surface. Otherwise your parts can go flying around the room as they complete.........

Otherwise you might want to consider a low or medium watt laser to cut 'flat' parts.

You might want to compare the .dxf output from your rhino created files to what happens to that file when you walk it into AutoCad, or another program that can take .dxf . You can check for design shape and output programming inconsistencies/problems ahead of time using a signshop paper plotter. What you see is what you get (except when it comes to non-interoperability of data).


Have fun.
e-)

drink lots.

Thanks for all the input.

All the cuts will be 2d, but it is a 3 axis router.