Designing a cam profile

1. Set the master range

Click Add Motion Cam, choose the motion pattern closest to the mechanism, then configure its engineering values. The wizard previews the generated curve; Blank profile remains available when you want to build entirely from scratch. Choose Custom / expert when the creation wizard itself should expose every point, outgoing profile, slope and curvature.

Master minimum / maximum define the master-axis span, typically 0…360 for one machine cycle in degrees. Choose Cyclic to wrap at the end; non-cyclic profiles can clamp, hold or extrapolate outside the range. Give both axes labels and engineering units so the plots describe the actual machine.

2. Think in motion phases

Write the slave's cycle as phases before touching the editor. The classic pick-and-place vertical axis:

Each phase boundary becomes one shared cam point. Use a recipe such as Dwell · move · dwell · return to create a valid starting profile, or add points directly in the graph/table.

When an object is created together with its driving variables, the object's final Motion step offers the same recipes. All cams created in that flow can share one master variable and cycle range while keeping independent slave profiles and strokes.

3. Add points and choose their behavior

Every point normally needs only a master position and slave position. Its behavior controls the shared boundary:

• Auto detects dwells and blends ordinary points.
• Stop enforces zero slope and curvature.
• Pass through solves a smooth boundary without stopping.
• Manual / expert exposes slope, curvature and the outgoing Poly5, Poly3, Cubic or Straight profile.

The selected motion profile belongs to the interval after the Manual point. The final point of a non-wrapping profile therefore has no outgoing profile. See the profile reference for details.

4. Edit graphically or numerically

Drag points in the interactive graph, double-click to add one, or edit exact values in the point table. Both views update the same shared points.

5. Check continuity in the visualizer

Open the visualizer and look at all three curves. Position continuity is not enough, velocity steps mean infinite acceleration (visual snap, and a real machine would bang). Match each segment's end conditions to its neighbour's start conditions.

For a cyclic profile, evaluation wraps to the first-cycle position by default, even if the first and last slave positions differ. Enable Append displacement each cycle for progressive indexing or pitch motion. With that option, every master cycle appends the endpoint difference: for example, a 0 → 100 mm cam adds 100 mm of travel per cycle. Velocity and acceleration should still meet smoothly across an accumulating cycle boundary.

6. Wire it up

Set the slave variable's mode to Motion Cam with your profile and master variable, then bind it to the object or mechanism input. Multiple axes of one station = one cam per axis, all sharing the same master.