CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
13 April 2010
Events News
Delcam to Support Broad Range of Machine Tools at Ontario Open House
Delcam will support the leading Machine Tool Distributors in Ontario – DMG Canada, Elliott Matsuura, Ferro Technique, SST and EMEC – at their annual Open House event in Mississagua, Ontario, on 5th and 6th May. With over 50 CNC machines on display, this two-day event will give visitors a chance to compare the latest and greatest in CNC technology by many of the world’s premier builders; GF Agie Charmilles, Tornos, Makino, Mikron, Okuma, Doosan, Matsuura, Muratec, Metris, Toyoda, Brother, Tsugami, Chiron, Roku-Roku, Agma, Sister and Nakamura-Tome.
According to Mark Cadogan, Delcam’s Vice President for Sales in Canada, “We have a great relationship with the Machine Tool OEMs as we can provide CAM software to run any of their machines. It is much easier for them to deal with us as a single supplier than having to use different CAM partners across their ranges of equipment.”
“They also know that Delcam has the largest CAM development team in the industry, having spent over $14 Million US on R & D in 2009,” he claimed. “This means that Delcam can develop extra functionality for any new machines faster than other suppliers.”
“A huge benefit of working with Delcam is the extensive support that is provided to both customers and machine tool suppliers,” he added. “Furthermore, we have the financial resources to ensure that this high level of support can be maintained during the current downturn.”
With its broad range of CAM software, PowerMILL, for high-speed and five-axis machining, FeatureCAM for feature-based programming and PartMaker for Swiss-type lathes and turn-mill equipment, Delcam will be able to showcase solutions for all of these advanced machine tools.
The 2010 PowerMILL release supports 64-bit computers and also continues to improve user productivity by extending the application of the latest background-processing and multi-threading technologies available in recent hardware. The combination of these two developments is estimated to reduce calculation times by up to 25%.
PowerMILL 2010 also includes more than 50 other major enhancements. This is the largest number in a single release for over five years and reflects the continued high levels of investment in product development at Delcam. These improvements allow faster and easier generation of highly-efficient toolpaths for three- through five-axis milling.
The most obvious change for existing users will be an updating of all the toolpath-creation forms to a new and improved layout. The forms make it simpler for new users to find the commands they need, while also giving experienced operators more logical access to the more advanced options.
FeatureCAM was the world’s first feature-based programming system when it was introduced in 1995. According to FeatureCAM Development Director, Tom McCollough, “Recently, other CAM developers have tried to copy our automated approach to programming. However, with our longer history and larger R&D investment, we believe that FeatureCAM still maintains its clear leadership in knowledge-based machining.”
FeatureCAM’s high degree of automation already gives faster programming than other CAM systems. A range of enhancements in the 2010 version will make the software even quicker. Most important of these developments is support for multi-threading when generating 3D toolpaths. This allows calculations to be spread across multiple cores in dual- or quad-core computers. Improved algorithms have been introduced within the user interface to speed up the editing of features and to reduce the time needed to switch between machine-tool set-ups, while more efficient handling of stock models will reduce the memory required and so enhance performance still further.
Major highlights of the latest PartMaker release include the ability to perform five-axis simultaneous milling on multi-axis lathes, more powerful milling functionality, enhanced grooving routines, faster tool path creation, improved solid model-based programming tools and better programming of thread whirling.
PartMaker 2010 also features the option for a direct interface to all the advanced five-axis machining strategies currently supported by PowerMILL, including blade and blisk machining, as well as its highly sophisticated three-axis strategies. PowerMILL tool paths can be imported directly into PartMaker, manipulated and synchronized on PartMaker’s Process Table, and then simulated and post-processed directly from that working environment.
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