Although Mastercam is primarily known for its CAM software, the Connecticut-based company also makes a CAD tool named Mastercam X9 Design. The package includes support for NURBS geometry creation, 2D and 3D dimensioning, surfacing, solid modeling and even hybrid modeling strategies.
Pretty impressive!
But while X9 Design gives users a number of features to work with, Mastercam has extended user capabilities in its new release.
The first improvement in X9’s update is something that Mastercam calls Dynamic Xform. With this feature, users can toggle between gnomon manipulation and geometry manipulation without having to reselect geometry. Dynamic Xform promises to allow users to speed up their workflows by eliminating the tedium of reselecting geometry.
Another important addition to X9 Design is the software’s new Solid Position tool. Solid Position is essentially an assembly tool that gives users the ability to select the face of a solid body and mate it to the face of another solid body. With this tool, users have greater ability to redefine the base and final position of a body being that’s being moved in an assembly.
In addition to Dynamic Xform and Solid Position, X9 Design also includes an interesting feature that adds value to both the CAD and CAM aspects of design. Named Solid Disassemble, this tool will take a solid assembly and lay out each of its bodies onto a single plane. With all of the pieces of product ordered in that fashion users can begin creating toolpaths for milling in a much more straightforward manner.
Though it’s unclear whether all of the toolpaths for an assembly can be created in this disassembled model, the tool does make it much more difficult to miss a part when creating toolpaths for large and complex assemblies.
While Mastercam X9 Design might not be the most popular choice for those creating 3D models, the enhancements made to X9 Design do seem intriguing. For now, I imagine most people will stick to using the 3D tools that they already have on hand. However, if they encounter a situation where Mastercam’s CAM tools are the order of the day, they might find a few surprises in the company’s X9 Design tool.
For more information about other new features in Mastercam’s X9 Design update, visit its site.