“World’s fastest CAM” at MACH 2010

The 2010 release also improves productivity by using the latest background-processing and multi-threading technologies available in recent hardware. The combination of these two developments can reduce calculation times by up to 25 per cent, although this will depend on the size and complexity of the part. PowerMILL 2010 also includes more than 50 other major enhancements. This is the largest number in a single release for over five years and reflects the continued high levels of investment in product development at Delcam. These improvements allow faster and easier generation of highly-efficient toolpaths for 3 through 5-axis milling. A new series of strategies for roughing and finishing corners has been added. These give more efficient and smoother clearance of these areas, especially when a large tool has been used for roughing initially that has left large amounts of material in the corners. A number of improvements have been made to give smoother toolpaths for semi-finishing and finishing. These minimise the stresses put on the cutter and machine tool, and result in a better surface finish. More options have been added to the collision avoidance functionality in PowerMILL's 5-axis strategies to give more control over the direction chosen by the software to avoid the problem. In addition, the ability to specify a look-ahead distance has been added to the collision avoidance capability in order to ensure a smooth transition when tool-axis changes are required.