SolidCAM continues to insist upon its superiority — chief among them its speed, which claims that its patented cutting (iMachining) process optimizes speed and varies the depth of the cut. SolidCAM claims to shave machining time by “70 percent and more.”
SolidCAM allows the user to control the aggressiveness of the cut with a simple “machining level” slider bar interface
One customer, Burns Machinery (see video above), had been cutting using only a quarter of its 2-inch long cutter. Using SolidCAM, Burns now claims to use the full cutting edge “most of the time.”
SolidCAM works inside the Inventor interface. While it may not be a great advantage to have a machinist operate a CAD program, it does serve to preserve intelligent features created in Inventor — something a file transfer from CAD to CAM would remove.
SolidCAM makes a copy of the model for its purpose that is synched with the original model. Additional geometry that might be added in the manufacturing process is added on their own layer. SolidCAM allows the machinist to disregard certain Inventor features (like small fillets) that would be difficult to send to a CNC machine.
SolidCAM makes a version for SOLIDWORKS users, too.
More information
http://www.solidcam.com/