DP Technology showcases ESPRIT® 2011 at Design & Manufacturing South in Orlando, Fla

The latest version of computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM) software created by DP Technology will be exhibited March 16-17, when ESPRIT® 2011 will be featured at Design & Manufacturing South in Orlando, Fla.

Considered the “South’s largest resource for project acceleration,” Design & Manufacturing South is scheduled to take place at the Orange County Convention Center — where six additional industry-related events will be taking place under the same roof. Visitors to the show are encouraged to visit the ESPRIT booth, No. 720, where DP representatives will be available to discuss vital upgrades and perform demonstrations.

Included in ESPRIT 2011 are a significant number of innovative programming technologies for all machining disciplines — including milling, turning, wire EDM, multitasking mill-turn, and high-speed 3- and 5-axis — in addition to notable system-wide enhancements and new analysis tools. ESPRIT 2011 is designed to run on both the Microsoft® Windows® 7™ and Microsoft® Vista™ operating systems.

New to ESPRIT 2011 are a series of analysis tools — the zebra, porcupine, heat map and toolpath analysis commands —that provide graphic displays for the inspection of solid models and ease in programming.

The ‘Zebra’ command simulates the reflection of long strips of light on a shiny surface, making it easy to spot wrinkles or defects in a surface. The striped display also makes it easier to verify that two adjacent faces are in contact, are tangent, or have continuous curvature. If stripes smoothly connect from one face to another, elements are tangent.

The 'Porcupine' command displays normal vectors on faces and surfaces to aid in the visualization of changes in part curvature, which assists with the selection of ideal machining strategies.

The ‘Heat Map’ command displays surfaces rendered in different colors according to the local radius of curvature. This allows users to review minimum and maximum curvatures for the selection of the most appropriate cutting tools.

The 'toolpath analysis' command traces the position of the tool along a selected toolpath to aid in evaluating toolpath smoothness and to examine the quality of point distribution.