CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
March 2007
Events News
Mastercam's Maintenance Release Delivers Enhanced Toolpath Control; CNC Software's New Capabilities Demonstrated at EASTEC 2007
The EASTEC show ushers in the latest CAD/CAM software from CNC Software Inc. Mastercam X2's Maintenance Release (MR1) will be showcased in booth # 5245 at the Big E Fairgrounds in West Springfield, MA on May 22-24. This release introduces significant new capabilities, including improved toolpaths for high speed machining, multiaxis enhancements, and much more.
Pencil Rest Material Optimization
The high speed machining Pencil toolpath has been enhanced to provide much smoother motion with fewer retracts when used with rest material. Also, Mastercam can now calculate the appropriate number of offset passes needed, based on tool diameter.
Core Roughing Trochoidal Controls
Trochoidal motion in high speed toolpaths assists with the machining of harder materials. Trochoidal motion maintains an acceptable tool load, allowing feeds and speeds programming to be reliable. In MR1, Mastercam gives you the ability to control when and how the trochoidal motion occurs in a toolpath.
Multiaxis Enhancements
Mastercam's 5-Axis Flowline toolpath has been enhanced to support undercuts. On complicated files where controlling the normal direction of the surfaces are cumbersome, Mastercam has an option that lets you either allow undercuts or ignore the surface normal direction, greatly simplifying the process.
The Advanced Multiaxis toolpaths have also been enhanced to support solid geometry. When a solid model is present, Mastercam provides the option to select solid geometry.
Viewsheets
New to Mastercam, viewsheets will save time when working with multiple views or working with different levels at the same time. Viewsheets let you create different user-defined sheets consisting of the view orientation, zoom scale, and visible levels of the part. Bookmarks allow you to save a specific state inside the viewsheet and recall it later. Mastercam saves the current view orientation, zoom, and visible level information each time you move from one viewsheet to another.
Additional MR1 Enhancements
• Z Oscillation contour type has been added to minimize tool wear. Z Oscillation is especially useful when cutting thinner materials or laminated materials.
• The high speed Scallop toolpath has been enhanced to optimize toolpath retracts during shallow applications.
• The high speed toolpaths have been modified to allow the user to control when automatic feeds, speeds, stepovers, and stepdowns are calculated.
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