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      <title>Planar Milling Overview</title>
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      <div class="title_topic2" id="xps10_pagetitle">Planar Milling Overview</div>
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      <p class="para_topic">Planar Milling operations create tool paths that remove volumes of material in planar layers. This type of operation is most commonly used to rough out material in preparation for a finishing operation.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">The Cut Volume is the material to be removed. You can specify the material to be removed as the Blank material (stock piece, forging, casting, etc.), minus the Part material as illustrated below. You can define the Blank and Part geometry with boundaries in Planar Milling, or by selecting faces, curves, or bodies in Cavity Milling.</p>
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         <p align="center"><img align="bottom" src="graphics/pcmill_intfi22.gif"></p>
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      <div class="title_figure">Part and Blank Geometry</div>
      <p class="para_topic">In Planar Milling, boundaries are used to define the Part, Blank, Check, and Trim geometry. The boundaries are swept along the tool axis to the Floor Plane to define the Part and Blank volumes.</p>
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         <p align="center"><img align="bottom" src="graphics/pcmill_blank_pt_bdry.gif"></p>
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      <div class="title_figure">Blank and Part Boundaries</div>
      <p class="para_topic">In the above figure, a Blank boundary defines the Blank volume and multiple Part boundaries define the Part volume. The cut volume (material to be removed) is defined by the Blank volume minus the Part volume.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">It is not always necessary to specify a Blank boundary. A Part boundary may serve as a peripheral loop (main containment boundary) by enclosing the other Part boundaries as illustrated below.</p>
      <div class="figure">
         <p align="center"><img align="bottom" src="graphics/pcmill_pt_bdry.gif"></p>
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      <div class="title_figure">Part Boundaries</div>
      <p class="para_topic">In the above figure, a Part boundary serves as a main containment boundary, essentially defining the Blank volume. Multiple Part boundaries within the main containment boundary define the Part volume. The cut volume (material to be removed) is defined by the difference between the Blank volume and the Part Volume.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">Boundaries can be defined by selecting curves or edges, permanent boundaries, or faces. To correctly identify the Part and Blank volumes, boundaries should be placed at the top of the material.</p>
      <p class="para_topic">Although a Blank boundary may be specified as Tanto, the tool does not actually cut tangent to a Blank boundary. If it did, the tool would cut through empty space for the first pass and no material would be removed until the first stepover. Instead, the first cutting pass is offset into the Blank material the distance of one stepover as illustrated below.</p>
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         <p align="center"><img align="bottom" src="graphics/pcmill_tanto_blank.gif"></p>
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      <div class="title_figure">Tanto on a Blank Boundary</div>
      <p class="para_topic">The above figure illustrates the first Tanto pass of a Follow Periphery cut pattern on a Blank boundary.</p>
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            <td valign="top" align="left"><img align="left" src="../graphics/note.gif" alt="Note" title="Note"></td>
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                  <p class="para_note_body">With the Follow Periphery pattern, some narrow regions may not be cut, and may leave excess material for the next cut level. For this reason, wall cleanup and island cleanup should both be turned on in the cutting parameters. These assure that the cutter takes a pass along each part and island wall, and does not leave any excess material.</p>
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