SolidWorks kickstarts a busy CAD&CAM 2011 fall season

It seems like only a few days ago the hotdogs where sizzling on the grill, backyard bonfires, and the CAD/CAM world more or less asleep. But as we find ourselfs here in the middle of November the reality is that the wonderful world of Design, Engineering and Manufacturing has awaken and actually been pretty busy as of late. Here is a quick recap…

September 1st. SolidWorks made there 2011 version available for download, and you could clearly see that the press and blogging community was hungry for some action. In my opinion this 2011 version of SolidWorks do not introduce anything that is going to change things in the CAD industry. Understanding that every version can’t be great leaps into the future, I’m already looking forward to next years release. Yep thats right!…Already excited about 2012(SolidWorks people…please do not feel any pressure 😉 ). Beside some new buttons, rearrange of functions, and new stuff like “de-feature” tool, I hope this version will prove to be a continued effort by SolidWorks to make a more reliable and stable product. We will for sure become more familiar with SolidWorks 2011 here on cadcamstuff.com months ahead. If you are looking for some good information for the new stuff for the 2011 version I would have to recommend you jump over to The SolidWorks Geek and read Alex Ruiz’s SolidWorks 2011 A geeks view …… or if you like me also enjoy listing to podcast on your daily commute. Check out Lou Gallo’s of The SolidWorks Heard2011 What’s New Where Lou Gallo goes through the “What’s New” pdf that comes with your software.

Not long after the release of SolidWorks 2011 both Jeff Ray~CEO of SolidWorks~and Jon Hirschtick~founder of SolidWorks~decided to do some blogging on the biggest topic of months prior SolidWorks World event. The subject The cloud!. Personally I really like that SolidWorks is taking the approch to be involved in this future technology instead of playing passive for then possible later playing scratchy catch up. But I honestly thought they where a further ahead with answers to some of the questions that seems to be repeated, such as security, user cost and reliability of service. These two easily digestible blog post are available on the SolidWorks blog. I truly recommend you take the time to read on the future to come. Jeff Ray, follow up on SolidWorks World and Jon Hirschtick, Platform Shift and Online Data

CAMWorks beta is up and running. Being in beta things are pretty tight in regards to what to come, but we do know that CAMWorks are going to be available with a payable option to attach Volumill for spicing some serious chip removal. VoluMill is a program that is essebtional for material removal operations such as pocket milling. VoluMill will calculate a constant load on your cutter and not only save on tool life but also decrease cycle time. I will defiantly be looking to get some more information to bring on VoluMill beside what is one there website, and when beta is over it could be fun to actual post some mill pocket benchmarks. Here is the press release from tenlinks Celeritive to Integrate VoluMill with Geometric CAMWorks

Earlier this month HSMWorks 2011 was released. I was lucky enough on my recent visit back to Denmark that Mark and Rene from HSMWorks took a couple hours out of there busy day to chat with me over a cup of coffee at there new location in northern Copenhagen. It is pretty evident that these guys are carrying a healthy dose of industry experience from there companionship a few doors down the hallway where the respected name of Cimco is on the door. It is pretty clear HSMWorks has been built on a solid foundation, and this product sets quality ahead of anything else. Most likly also why the company decided to annouce that there new lathe package is comming later this year, instead of rushing and stuffing an unfinsihed product in there HSMWorks 2011 release. Check out there press release here HSMWorks 2011 Released

MastercamX5 are on the streets. It hurts not having a finger on the pulse of the product that has been so much fun for me in the past, but I’m hoping to be able to provide some insight on this newly released version of one of the CAM worlds top products, if not from my personal experience, then maybe from someone else. Stay tuned for some MastercamX5 goodies until then I guess we have to live with the sample from Mastercam’s “What’s New” teaser.

And lastly I can not end this blog post without writing the word “Creo”. Does it sound like a breakfast cereal? well it might actually keep you full all the way through dinner. We are talking about serving up a bulk of programs including the name Pro/ENGINEER as one of the dishes in a new buffet named creo. Here is the link to the official site creo But if you really have the interest to read up on this chain restaurant I would recommend checking out deelip’s What exactly is Creo and Ralph Grabowski’s Project lightning=Creo Both guys did a fabulousness job covering this story.

Conclusion… So it has defiantly been a busy couple of months on the CAD&CAM planet. Hopefully this pushing of new computer aided releases will push for better design, manufacturing and work in our respectful fields of expertise.

#Solidworks #CAMWorks #creo #CNC #Mastercam #CADCAM #HSMWorks