This is new territory for Delcam, who has always concentrate on its own tools and ensuring they work together in a pretty nice manner where appropriate and fleshing out various special purpose tools when there’s a market requirement. So, this is the first time that the company has developed a CAM system that’s built into another vendor’s design system.
Delcam for SolidWorks takes Delcam’s tools and knowledge from both FeatureCAM (for feature-based and automated machining) and PowerMill (for handling complex geometry and machine tools) to bring SolidWorks users a range of tools from 2.5 axis milling, through al; manner of things including 3 axis, up to mill/turn and 5 axis continuous, with full machine simulation, feature recognition where needed and such. It’s just been given certified Gold Status as a partner application, which is a validation of the quality of the integration – and it’s something that’s particularly rigorous for a new vendor entering the partner programme.
So, who’s the target market? The answer, according to Delcam, is this:
- A company that loves SolidWorks.
- A company that has a tight link between design and manufacturing.
- Anyone that has a combination of machining centre, turning and mill/turn facilities.
- Looking to streamline their resources and increase employee skills.
- Finally, not job shops that are just machining parts.
We’ll be taking a look at Delcam for SolidWorks in the January issue of DEVLEOP3D but in the meantime, here’s one of those sketchy conference videos, complete with the obligatory gentleman standing in the way for a good 30 seconds or so – my apologies for that.
