Delcam will demonstrate the latest developments in its Powershape Pro software for product design, tooling design and reverse engineering, and in its Powermill CAM system for high-speed and five-axis machining at the MTA Vietnam exhibition to be held in Ho Chi Minh City from 8–11 July 2014.
Powershape Pro 2014 R2 includes automated tools for reverse engineering
The 2014 R2 release of Powershape Pro includes a range of new functionality for the design of both products and tooling.
In particular, the version introduces powerful new tools to make re-engineering complex parts from scanned data faster and easier, plus an option to merge disjointed faces within a solid and so make direct modelling operations more robust.
The 2014 R2 release of Powermill includes options to machine parts and tooling with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
According to the company, its simulation and customisation tools, plus greater editing flexibility, give even greater opportunities to minimise programming times and reduce manufacturing times.
Key product features and benefits
Powershape Pro
- Powershape Pro offers a combination of solid, surface and direct modelling, together with reverse engineering functionality.
- The new automated tools for re-engineering provide quicker and simpler methods for segmenting a mesh of scanned data into primitive regions, such as planes, spheres, cones, cylinders and tori, as well as into revolved or extruded surfaces. Primitive surfaces or solids are then fitted automatically to those regions.
- For more complex geometry, or when finer control is needed, mesh segmentation can be carried out manually.
- Regions with even more complex, free-form geometry can be replaced with a single surface.
- The target area can be selected with a set of easy-to-use options, while a single dialogue box gives control of the fit of the surface to the mesh.
- The same technique can be used for areas with large amounts of detail, such as logos or textures.
Powermill
- A series of improvements to Delcam’s Vortex high-efficiency area-clearance strategy is included in the release. Vortex gives fast, safe metal removal by allowing solid carbide tooling to cut with its full flute length so minimising machining times.
- A dialogue tracks the position of the machine tool, and a toolbar simulates and adjusts the configuration and tool axis of a three-plus-two machine or any equipment with incremental rotary axes.
- The dialogue has a redesigned user interface giving improved presentation of data on the position of the machine tool, together with the limits set for each axis.
- It includes a slider to jog the machine components into position during the simulation and displays a warning if any axis limit is exceeded.
- The toolbar can be used to edit the tool axis and the orientation of the machine tool. This allows quick and easy updates to existing toolpaths with the new parameters.
- A new workplane that is aligned to the new axis orientation can be created for subsequent programming operations.