When identical operations — holes, grooves, milling, cutouts — are scattered across dozens of parts, changing them one by one takes long. «Group processing of operations» does it at once: it selects the needed operations across the whole project and, in a single action, changes them, makes them through or deletes them. The tool works not only with drilling, which is why it lives at the level of the whole CNC-operations section rather than inside drilling.
Where to open it
Group processing opens with the group-processing button (at a material in the project and in the project actions). A wizard window appears that leads you step by step — from choosing the operation type to previewing the changes. At the top there are step «breadcrumbs»: they show where you are and let you jump to an available step. Next to the steps are counters that show how many operations fall under the current selection.
The wizard steps
- Operation type. You choose what to process: drilling, grooving, milling or a cutout. The list shows only the types that actually exist in the project's parts; if there are no operations at all, the wizard will say so.
- Material and parts. You tick the materials (you can choose «All»), then the parts (also «All»); each part is shown with its id and dimensions. Below you see how many operations of the chosen type are in the ticked parts.
- Planes. You narrow the selection by part sides — with checkboxes, each side having its own operation counter. If no plane is ticked, all are taken into account.
- Conditions. You additionally select operations by their parameters: a range of diameter and depth (an exact value or «from–to»), the type (blind/through) and others — each condition has a live «selected» counter.
- What to do. You choose the action on the selected operations: change a value (for example, the diameter or the depth), make them through (the depth is set equal to the part thickness), move to another plane or delete. The wizard shows how many operations will be changed or deleted.
- Preview. Before applying — a table of all the changes: part, operation id, plane, «Before» and «After», status. Changes that have no effect (the value already matches) are excluded, and what the machine cannot do is flagged separately («Not available on machines»). Large lists are split into pages. The «Confirm and apply» button makes the changes.
Holes: what is taken into account
For the “Holes” operation type, selection is by plane (one or several), diameter (an exact value or a range), depth, and type — through or blind. Available actions: change the diameter, depth or plane; make holes through or blind; delete.
Cutouts: what is taken into account
For the “Cutouts” operation type, selection is by contour type (rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle), depth, width, length, radius, plane, and whether edge banding or end machining is present. Available actions: change the geometry with automatic recalculation of parameters, and set or remove edge banding and end machining.
Binding to machine capabilities
Group processing does not create unfeasible operations: if the result of a change is something the machine physically cannot do, that row in the preview is marked «Not available on machines» and is not applied. So a bulk edit stays within the company's real equipment.
Safe for what is already done
The wizard changes nothing «blindly»: everything is visible in the preview before confirmation, and changes without effect are cut off automatically. If something was selected wrongly, you can return to any previous step via the «breadcrumbs» and correct the conditions.
When to use what
Group processing is for bulk edits of identical operations across many parts: change the diameter of all drilled holes, deepen the grooves, delete the unnecessary. But if you need to transfer operations onto a paired part in mirror — that is copying and mirroring a part (see the article «Copying and mirroring holes»).