OPEN MIND challenges conventional Z-level finishing.
Z-Level Finishing Gets an Unexpected Update
To begin its 2016 update, OPEN MIND has made a daring move by rethinking Z-level finishing, disrupting a long-maintained conventional process.
For quite some time, CAM operators have simply made due with the long processing times associated with programming and milling smooth, high-quality surfaces. By employing a new surfacing strategy, hyperMILL’s engineers have created an algorithm that can mill surfaces across all five axes in record times using barrel cutters. In fact, according to OPEN MIND, when employed in five-axis tangent plane machining, time savings of up to 90 percent can be realized over traditional cutting methods that employ ball mills.
While accurate, high-speed surfacing is valuable to a number of fields, OPEN MIND believes that aerospace and automotive machinists will be able to realize the greatest benefits, as they most commonly deal with parts that require very complex geometries.
Optional Milling Enhancements
With the introduction of the new surfacing improvements, OPEN MIND has turned to a curious strategy for one of the more impressive, and potentially disruptive, elements of its new release. In 2016, hyperMILL will offer an optional performance package to improve the base software’s roughing, milling and drilling package. According to OPEN MIND, the upgrade, dubbed hyperMAXX, adds roughing strategies that include high-performance cutting, trochoidal tool movements, a new spiraling open cut and automatic feed rate adjustments to limit tool breakage.
When it comes to drilling, the hyperMAXX upgrade adds a more robust five-axis helical drilling module. The improved machine movement makes cutting and chip removal in complex motions more effective.
Finally, hyperMILL’s add-on features new finishing methods that extend the use of barrel cutters, giving them lease to performance tasks that weren't possible in previous releases.
Why these new features aren't included in the standard 2016 release isn't clear at the moment—to be sure, it’s a curious move.
Updated Shape and Surface Recognition and an Improved Sketcher Tool
Although there are a plethora of updates in hyperCAD-S, the two most critical for everyday users are 1) the software’s ability to automatically trace the outlines of surfaces and solid models and 2) an improved sketcher tool.
If, however, a CAM model has to be drawn from scratch, hyperMILL’s drawing tools have been upgraded to feature contextual dialog boxes that can streamline controlling geometry with dimensions and other constraints.
In the world of CAM, where progress can seem glacial, hyperMILL’s investment in new cutting strategies is a welcome change. However, it remains to be seen if this bold approach to development will pay dividends. For the most part, the CAD and CAM communities are accustomed to proven techniques, and they like to use the software they know. That's totally reasonable. But, it's also hindering.
Look at it this way, if an outsider CAM provider is going to successfully disrupt incumbent software, it's going to not only introduce radically new technologies and/or methods, but also develop significant user traction. For the time being, that doesn’t seem possible for players such as hyperMILL, regardless of what improvements they may deliver to the everyday machinist. Mastercam and a few others have a stranglehold on the market, and it's for a good reason. They simply make a quality, easy-to-use product that’s difficult to displace.
So for the foreseeable future, the hyperMILLs of the world will continue to swim upstream using novel new techniques to gain attention and build their market share. Maybe one day, they’ll hit a critical mass of features that will compel machinists to switch their allegiances and adopt a new platform. But if that future does occur, it's one that's well off in the distance.