Delcam software helps Californian animatronics firm

A robot manufacturing system, supported by Delcam software, is allowing animatronics maker Garner Holt Productions, California, to slash manufacturing times for sculptured products.

Garner Holt Productions is the world's largest manufacturer of animatronics, special effects and show action equipment. In the past, it took an army of designers and sculptors months to produce parts.

The Robotic Milling Cell (RMC) was put together by Delcam reseller Robotic Solutions, Inc. "The RMC is a phenomenal machine," says Garner Holt (pictured), company president. To operate it, the animatronics company uses a combination of Delcam programs; CopyCAD for reverse engineering, PowerSHAPE for detail design and PowerMILL for toolpath generation; plus custom-designed software from Robotic Solutions.

The system allows the company to laser scan small parts and scale them up to much larger parts, too. For example, a 6 in dinosour can become a 40 ft dinosaur, and once the design gets to the RMC, it only takes a few hours to sculpt the figure out of foam.

"We can scan a human head, clean the data up in an hour, and then run the toolpath software and cut the head in 40 minutes," says Mr Holt. "You can have an image of a person's head, so that you could recognise that person within millimetres, in a couple of hours. It would normally take a sculptor up to three weeks to do that."

Author
Andrew Allcock

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