CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

September 2007

Product News

Mastercam's Maintenance Release Delivers New and Enhanced Toolpath Control

CNC Software announced the release of Mastercam X2's Maintenance Release (MR2). Making its customer debut in September, this release is available to all Maintenance customers and all new Mastercam customers. This release introduces significant new capabilities, including new and improved toolpaths for high speed machining, multiaxis enhancements, and much more.

Peel Milling Toolpath

Delivering powerful high speed cutting to 2D projects, this new toolpath moves the tool in and "peels" away material, layer by layer. It supports efficient constant climb milling by using a trochoidal type of motion with accelerated "back" feed moves when the tool is not engaged in material.

Operations Manager

The Operations Manager pane can now float to a different area of the graphics window or to a separate screen when you are working with dual monitors. Even in its remote location, the Operations Manager remains dockable.

Create Boundary Function

The Create Boundary function greatly expands Mastercam's toolpath boundary creation, restricting the toolpath to highly specific areas. You can now calculate the boundary using shallow areas, theoretical rest areas, cutter contact areas, and enhanced silhouette boundary controls.

Multiaxis Enhancements

Many powerful enhancements are included in the advanced multiaxis toolpaths. Examples include new "by region" machining, which allows the toolpath motion to be optimized by completing one region before moving on to another, and expanded entry and exit macros that greatly simplify contacting and leaving the material.

Swept Surfaces Improvements

New techniques and options provide more sweep orientation control options, greater flexibility in the use of multiple along and cross curves, and better accuracy for matching those curves while using less data to define the resulting NURB surface.

Additional MR2 Enhancements

•  The Level Manager can now be moved to a second monitor and left open. You can also hide all geometry except what is on the main level, or display a range of levels in the Level Manager grid.

•  You can define horizontal block drill stations in the machine definition rather than using an aggregate. You can set up different views for each station.

•  Common edge optimization in nesting is now supported. Nesting toolpaths so that they have common edges saves both time and money.

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