Delcam previews new programs at Productivity Seminar

Delcam, the world’s largest specialist CAM supplier, showcased a number of new products and new versions at a free Productivity Seminar held earlier this month at the Sandvik Canada Technical Center near Toronto.

"Delcam has the largest development team in the CAM industry. Unlike some of our competitors, we have continued with this high level of investment during the current downturn, so we still have a constant stream of new innovations in our programs,” explained Delcam Canada Vice President Mark Cadogan. "We hold these regular events to ensure our customers, and prospects alike, are aware of these new developments so that they can gain the maximum benefit from Delcam’s software.”

Enhancements were shown across Delcam’s broad range of CAM products, including FeatureCAM for feature-based programming of mills, lathes and complex multi-tasking and multi-axis machines; PartMaker for turn-mill equipment and Swiss type lathes, and PowerMILL for high-speed and five-axis machining. Together, these programs comprise the world’s most comprehensive range of CAM software from a single supplier.

The most significant of the new developments was the latest version of PowerMILL, which incorporates support for parallel processing on multi-core computers. The result is even faster calculation times than PowerMILL 9, providing dramatically-increased output. Individual toolpaths can be generated more quickly and the user can prepare data in the foreground while the computer calculates toolpaths in the background. Furthermore, the computer will continue with a series of calculations automatically during the user’s breaks or overnight.

Delcam’s range of quality control software was also featured, including the latest release of PowerINSPECT, the world’s leading hardware-independent inspection software. This incorporates a completely new interface for "simple” measurements. Other enhancements include more flexible handling of geometric data sets, easier methods to add extra data and improved reporting. All these new features make it even faster to spot any errors, saving time and money on having to carry out corrections.

A more recent expansion for Delcam has been into Orthotic and Dental CADCAM solutions. A number of new functions were shown that have been added to these programs recently in response to requests from the various companies that are supporting their development.

The day was rated as a great success by Mr. Cadogan. "We were able to show our software range to existing and potential customers, and to several of our machine tool partners,” he reported. "They all seemed very impressed with what they saw. I am sure those in attendance left with the impression that Delcam are making sure both that our products are here for the long haul and that we have every intention of coming out of the current economic times stronger than most of our competition.”