Delcam to show fastest-ever CAM at Hurco Open House

Delcam will demonstrate the latest version of its PowerMILL CAM system at an Open House to be held by Hurco Europe at its UK base in High Wycombe from 6th to 9th July. This new release, version 10, offers the fastest-ever toolpath generation on multi-processor computers, giving greatly increased user productivity. It incorporates the latest background-processing and multi-threading technologies and so uses the full power of recent hardware developments to reduce calculation times and increase output dramatically.

Other enhancements to further increase productivity include reduced memory usage when programming the largest and most complex parts, and improved ordering to give faster cycle times on the machine tool. This more efficient machining will be demonstrated on several of the latest Hurco machines on show during the Open House.

PowerMILL will be used to program the Hurco VM10U five-axis machining centre at the Open House.

With PowerMILL 10, users can prepare data in the foreground while calculating toolpaths in the background. This eliminates the need for the user to wait for each calculation to be completed before he can start preparing the next operation. Calculations can be queued by the operator and the software will automatically start the next operation as soon as each toolpath is generated.

The new multi-threading capabilities allow calculations to be divided between the cores in a multi-core machine. This improves calculation times significantly so increasing user productivity, reducing any down-time where machine tools are waiting for NC data and minimising lead times.

The extent of the savings will depend on the size and complexity of the part being machined and on the programming strategies being used. Tests at Delcam indicate that a dual-core computer will perform raster machining calculations in around 55% of the time taken by a single core machine, while a quad-core machine will complete the calculation in around 35% of the time.