3D Systems announced today the release of version 13 of its Cimatron™ software for mold-, die- and tool-makers. This new version introduces new and enhanced capabilities that can dramatically accelerate productivity and minimize overhead in the design and manufacturing of molds, dies and discrete parts. As part of 3D Systems’ end-to-end solutions, Cimatron is a key component in today’s digital manufacturing workflow, allowing 3D Systems customers to optimize their processes and unlock greater productivity on the factory floor.
“Cimatron 13 eases the growing pressure tool shops are facing to stay competitive in quality and delivery time,” said Calvin Hur, Vice President, Co-Chief Operating Officer & Chief Revenue Officer, Software Products, 3D Systems. “This significant update provides the means for tool shops to create better tools and parts, faster.”
Bastech, a one-source solution provider for shop floor, additive manufacturing services and equipment sales, beta tested Cimatron 13 with the new conformal cooling design capability and recorded its experience. Using Cimatron as part of an end-to-end workflow, Bastech accelerated its design process for conformally-cooled injection molds, then leveraged Direct Metal Printing with 3D Systems’ ProX® 200 to manufacture the molds. The finished molds were inspected prior to use using Geomagic® Control™ 3D inspection software from 3D Systems. This process introduced savings across the board by not only reducing design time, but cutting the time and cost of manufacturing as well.
“By using Cimatron to design conformal cooling, our process has changed from a very manual, to a very automated approach, saving us 70% on mold design time and cutting our mold costs by 16%, which led to a 14% reduction in injection cycle times and an overall increase in part quality,” said Ben Staub, President of Bastech. “Cimatron helps our mold-makers make better decisions about how to set up cavities, cores and inserts, before bringing them into reality using 3D Systems’ direct metal 3D printing.”
A fully redesigned user interface that is faster to use, and easier to learn and customizeCimatron 13 includes many new features and capabilities such as:
- A broad range of new CAD for tooling functionalities for faster design, including direct modeling, new mesh operations with hybrid modeling capabilities and enhanced assembly functions
- Boosted drafting capabilities including the dynamic creation of multiple views and the ability to create shaded views
- New mold-design applicative tools including gates design for a more streamlined design process and conformal cooling tools for the easy design of curved cooling channels that shorten injection cycle times and prevent part warpage
- Separate environments for progressive- and transfer-dies for quick design of any die type
- Smart electrode mirroring tools and hybrid design environments for accelerated electrode design with automated solid tools
- A new plate machining solution that provides a complete set of capabilities for fast, efficient and automated programming of mold- and die-plates
- New measurement on CNC machines to define the measurement probing cycle in the NC environment, allowing validation of the machining process while the part is on the machine
- New and improved NC programming capabilities for milling and drilling to boost programming automation in rough, finish and 2.5 axis operations
- Concurrent design and manufacturing environment, enabling multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously
