Software/Computer Aided Design

New features include the addition of plunge-milling cycles to the 3D and 5-axis strategies for machining cutting edges. Material is removed by plunging movements to reduce vibration and improve surface finish, especially helpful for machining edges with steep walls. When 5-axis machining, undercut areas can also be reached by specifying the lateral inclination on the tilted tool. By specifying a distance, circular or linear movement profile, the tool is optimally retracted from the part.

NUM has now added non-circular grinding functionality to its NUMgrind cylindrical grinding software, which forms an application-specific element of the company’s renowned Flexium+ CNC platform. It is fully compatible with other Flexium software, from release 4.1.20.00 onwards.

ProNest 2021 builds on the strong foundation of ProNest 2019 to make the programming process more efficient. Whether using plasma, waterjet, laser, or oxyfuel cutting, this new version provides the powerful tools fabricators and manufacturers need to increase material savings, boost productivity, lower operating costs, and improve part quality.

Mastercam 2021 increases machining productivity and reduces overall production costs with faster and more flexible multiaxis improvements, improvements in turning and turning-related applications, advances in speed, safety, and much more. 

Enhancements to the Page Manager have improved toolpath management. These include the ability to create named groups and functions for copying and modifying existing toolpaths, which speeds up the process of creating finish paths that use the same tool set-up as the rough paths.

CAD analysis benefits from a new function which improves the suite of analysis-shading modes. Draft Analysis has been added to the existing Undercut and Accessibility shading, performing an on-the-fly analysis of the draft angle. This uses the same technique as in the undercut mode, but extended to more ranges. The colors and angular value of each range can be changed by simply clicking on the colors or numeric labels on the graphics toolbar.

Another important feature in the latest release of the software is the New Part centering/probing function, which generates pointset nodes for any inspection machine or direct CNC part inspection on a milling machine. Additionally, a new Probe Inspect command creates and exports control points in the CAM project to feed a probing system. There are also specific improvements to part centering tailored for CNC machines with table palletization. 

A number of these productivity boosts have been achieved by reducing calculation time with EDGECAM 2021’s enhanced parallel-processing capability. Two of the most popular machining cycles – Roughing and Profiling – benefit from improvements to the software’s multi-threading technology algorithms. Three significant time savings: EDGECAM’s world-leading high-speed Waveform Roughing strategy is now significantly faster when generating toolpath for both solid and wireframe components. 

Both versatile and impact-resistant, BigRep's new ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) is perfectly suited for mobility applications and a variety of end-use consumer appliances. Weather- and UV-resistant, BigRep’s new ASA (Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate) material is a robust, engineering-grade filament with high mechanical resistance, low shrinkage and superior layer adhesion, while also showing a greater heat resistance than even ABS.

NCSIMUL virtually builds the real-life machining environment to avoid errors, decrease set-up times and switch CNC programs between machines. 

The 2021 release features a new comparison mode that detects excessive material during a fast and hidden simulation. It shows a solid comparison between the CAD/CAM models or previous cut stock and the NCSIMUL simulated model.