Article From: 5/9/2011 Production Machining
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SmartCAM V18.0 delivers new and improved milling functionality to the SmartCAM milling suite and several modeling and toolpath editing enhancements to the entire SmartCAM suite of computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) system software.
The SmartCAM product family consists of applications for CNC milling, turning, fabrication and wire EDM. The new version is built on two central themes: core milling improvements and core modeling and toolpath editing enhancements requested by customers.
The rest-mill roughing capabilities allow users to easily identify areas of remaining material, then machine those areas using a new region rough process. The Region Rough process machines the rest mill regions by automatically switching between profiling and pocketing strategies, depending on whether a region is open or closed. These new capabilities make it extremely fast and easy to re-machine features using progressively smaller tools.
In addition to the Rest Mill Roughing improvements, V18.0 introduces feature-based hole-making capabilities. Solid model hole-feature recognition has been enhanced to automatically identify compound hole features and create corresponding hole-feature elements, which include full parametric detail of the hole. A new hole making process allows the toolpath to be created by applying hole-making tools to a group of hole-feature elements, and automatically determining the start levels and hole depths from the input hole-features. The user has complete control over the hole-feature sequence, and the hole making processes can be modified and regenerated at ay time. These capabilities allow full automation for the creation of hole-making toolpath for common features, thereby saving time and ensuring accuracy and repeatability.
