CNC Software’s Mastercam X3 offers expanded machining flexibility and an increased emphasis on speed and automation. Feature based machining (FBM), new high-speed tool motion, and faster toolpath generation combine with dozens of additional enhancements in a package intended to improve shopfloor productivity.

Valuable for experienced power users and easy enough for new users, FBM evaluates a part’s features and automatically designs an effective machining strategy.

The success of Mastercam’s 3D high-speed tool paths leads to new high speed machining especially for 2D machining. Although optimized for high-speed cutting and hard milling, these offer many additional benefits including superior finish and longer tool life, the company says.

Substantially faster multi-axis tool paths are combined with enhanced control.

Mastercam in SolidWorks allows designers who work with the SolidWorks CAD system to program those parts with the CAM tool paths in the same interface. This package will be released after the general release of Mastercam X3.

Other new enhancements include import-full SolidWorks history trees, expanded support for cutting STL files, CAD enhancements, 3D high-speed toolpath enhancements, and more.