Design Engineering – May-June 2019

http://www.design-engineering.com May/June | 2019

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software was programmed by PhDs com-

fortable with multi-dimensional matrix

transformations, but CAM software was

written by practical users, who typically

read a plain DXF file output from CAD,

added tooling and path information and

output it as g-code (the DXF of CAM).

Their concern is for roughing strategies,

2- through 6-axis milling and turn-

ing-drilling.

Another split: CAM has its own lan-

guage that takes into account things like

swarfing, flow cuts, toolpaths, cutters,

multi-axes, point control, grooving and

inside roughing. Mold design, by itself, is

sufficiently complex that it’s sold separately

from CAM software.

Added to that, g-code isn’t universal.

Nearly every CNC machine offers a unique

set of capabilities. As a result, most g-code

needs to be tweaked for each machine

through post-processors. CAM software

vendors like post-processors, as they make

significant revenues selling machine-spe-

cific code. CAD vendor, on the other hand,

find them annoying, considering they

didn’t particularly want to be in the busi-

ness in the first place.

The split manifests itself in other ways.

Nearly all MCAD software is owned by

just a few corporations, while there are

roughly more than 200 CAM packages.

They have names like Alphacam, Bob-

Cad-Cam, CamWorks, Dolphin CAD-

CAM, Esprit, FeatureCAM, GibbsCAM,

Hypermill, Mastercam OneCNC, Power-

MILL, SolidCAM, TurboCAD/CAM,

Visual Mill, and ZW3D CAM. Many are

home-grown, but others are repackaged

from OEM providers, such as that made

by MachineWorks of England.

Nobody knows why the CAM software

industry hasn’t coalesced. Some attempts

were made, the biggest by Vero Software.

The company raised more than $10 million

to acquire a dozen CAM packages but in

2014, Vero was taken over by Hexagon.

MCAD vendors that didn’t develop their

AM Design tools, like Autodesk’s Netfabb, offer commands specific to designing for additive

manufacturing, such as lattice generation, support management and slicing manipulation.

CADReport

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