November 2004

By DE Editors

Product of the Week: November 24, 2004
 EdgeCAM Extends Native CAD Associativity to CATIA & ACISNative MCAD associativity said to boost productivity.Pathtrace (Southfield, MI) has announced EdgeCAM 9, the latest version of its solution for automating the NC programming of metal-cutting machine tools. Key additions to V9 are the EdgeCAM Solid Machinist for CATIA V5 and Solid Machinist for ACIS modules, a pair of new modules that enlarge EdgeCAM’s MCAD associativity attributes. Along with these new modules, EdgeCAM has the ability to load native Autodesk Inventor, Pro/Engineer, Solid Edge, and SolidWorks files.EdgeCAM Solid Machinist is a seamlessly integrated CAM system. EdgeCAM Solid Machinist for CATIA V5 allows users to load native part and assembly files, while the ACIS module lets you directly load native .sat and .sab files.All modules offer true associativity to native MCAD models and use the intelligence contained within the model to reduce programming time and mitigate the risk of errors. Full toolpath-to-model associativity, says Pathtrace, means that even late design changes are easily incorporated.With a single mouse click, you can instruct EdgeCAM Solid Machinist to use its automatic feature recognition capabilities to interrogate a model to find machinable features. No matter how complex the part, Pathtrace says that automatic recognition will find and extract the information for holes, contour pockets, and boss features. The user can also find single or nested pockets. The information is then used with EdgeCAM Tool Selector to select the optimal tools for machining.For more information on EdgeCAM Version 9 and the suite of Solid Machinist modules, visit the Pathtrace website.

---

  CAD data is more easily accessible to both technical and non-technical users according to Actify Inc. (San Francisco, CA). The company has released SpinFire Professional 2004 Version 2, which adds 2D CAD visualization capabilities to its 3D CAD visualization abilities.

SpinFire, says Actify, is aimed at improving decision making and innovation by taking full advantage of the knowledge and experience of those members of a manufacturer’s staff who do not have access to CAD systems. SpinFire enables access, communication, and distribution of multiple CAD and other file formats throughout an enterprise. With it, high technology companies, such as automotive, industrial automation, and discrete manufacturing, can cut costs and improve productivity.

SpinFire Professional 2004v2 supports files created in any major CAD file format, converting them into its unique .3D format. It allows for secure viewing, measuring, mark-up, and sharing of all major 2D and 3D data formats without needing to purchase and maintain additional seats of a native CAD system.

SpinFire Professional 2004v2 also has the ability to organize multiple documents—3D and 2D CAD, PDF, Microsoft Office, TIFF, and GIF, for example—in one compact file that can be distributed throughout the enterprise or supply chain. Additionally, SpinFire Professional 2004v2 protects intellectual property because it does not distribute original files.

SpinFire Professional 2004v2 is $499. A free trial version of SpinFire Professional 2004v2 can be downloaded at Actify’s website.