SmartCAM - Affordable CAD/CAM & Graphical Toolpath Software

Macro System Improvements - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - The SmartCAM macro system runtime interpreter has been replaced with a new two-pass compiler which immediately provides several key benefits such as faster processing, uniform language syntax, and built in error checking and reporting. The macro language has been enhanced with dynamic arrays, simpler string construction, additional branching capabilities, and new macro commands designed to solve specific programming needs, and it provides the opportunity for additional customization capabilities to be added in future releases.

Unwrap 3D Curves - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - Unwrap Curve allows 3D cylindrical curves extracted from wrapped features on a surface or solid model to be unwrapped into a plane parallel to the active workplane and tangent to the top of the cylinder. The unwrapped curves can then be used to develop toolpath to machine the wrapped feature, and the existing Wrap function used to convert the toolpath back into a 4th axis wrapped plane.

New Selection Improvements - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - Additional topological selection methods allow simple selection of an entire solid, and provide options to select all faces connected to the current selection set, or only those that are tangent.

Stitching Surfaces into Solids - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - This new functionality stitches surfaces in the active group into one or more solids. Surfaces that are adjacent to one another with coincident edges and vertices will be stitched into a solid. Once the open surfaces are converted into solids, all of the "From Solid" machining functionality, as well as the new surface selection features can be used.

Arc/Line Fit to Polyline - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - This new functionality creates new arc or line elements for each circular or linear polyline contained in the active group. The new arc or line elements can either replace the existing polyline elements at their respective database position, or be added to the database at the current insert position, without replacing the original polylines. This option is useful for converting extracted surface trimming curves into prismatic arc and line geometry.

Support for 3DConnexion Spaceballs and Navigators - New for SmartCAM V14.5 - SmartCAM now supports the 3DConnexion Spaceball/Navigator 3D mice. With the 3D mouse, the user can rotate, spin, pan, and zoom the view as desired.

ACIS® Solid Modeling Kernel - New for all SmartCAM V14.0 - All SmartCAM products now include the ACIS solid modeling geometry kernel, previously only available in the FreeForm Machining and Advanced Milling products. This new capability allows all applications to import/export 3D wireframe, surface, and solid model data via DXF, DWG, IGES, and ACIS-SAT.

OpenGL Graphics - New in V14.0 - The SmartCAM main graphics view (g-view) has been updated with OpenGL graphics. This change has several benefits, especially increased graphics performance. Other benefits include:

Shaded Surfaces
Surfaces in SmartCAM can now be shaded, making it much easier to see what the surfaces represent and how they relate to each other. Surface models and solids are now considerably easier to work with and visualize. A global transparency value can be applied to the shaded model, allowing for "through the part" viewing.

Surface Picking
Picking shaded surfaces is much easier than picking surfaces in wireframe, and is useful for adding surfaces to a group, for example. You can pick anywhere on the surface in shaded mode, and the selected element is highlighted using a different highlight color.

Reversed Normals on Surfaces
In the shaded view, surfaces with reversed normals can be viewed in a different color to make them easy to locate so they can be corrected.

Concurrent Dynamic Viewing
The Dynamic View functionality (provide only in a separate dialog box in previous versions) is now available on-demand in the g-view window. Using the keyboard function keys and mouse, the model can be immediately and dynamically zoomed, spun, panned or rotated.

These dynamic viewing options are also available during ShowPath tool motion verification.

Line Thickness
A new set of Display Modes options allow line width of Step or Layer line elements to be thickened, providing improved visibility when the toolpath or model edge geometry is displayed on top of a shaded model. Also, when the thick line style is used only for Step or Layer, it is now easy to distinguish toolpath from wireframe CAD geometry.

Group Element Marking Color

The Display Modes Element Marking setting has been enhanced to include options for Color, and Color and Arrows combined, providing better group element identification.

Code Compensation - New in V14.0 - New Machine Event allows special radius compensation user commands to be inserted into non-offset toolpath profiles.

File Preview Enhancements- New in V14.0 - When you save a PM5 Process Model file, a thumbnail image of the current g-view display is stored with the PM5 file to be displayed in the File Open Preview display. The File Open, Merge, CTG and Font file select dialogs also now include a Preview window.

Intermediate File Open/Save Dialogs Removed - New in V14.0 - The intermediate SmartCAM file selection dialog has been replaced with standard Windows file dialogs, bypassing the need to trigger the "File Select" button on the old dialog box.

Process Planner, Sort by Type Option - New in V14.0 - A new Process Planner Sort option allows the Step and Tool lists to be sorted by Operation and Tool type, which is particularly helpful when using the planner to organize and perform management tasks on your Job Libraries.

Invert Visibility Option - New in V14.0 - A new Invert Visibility option has been added to the Group palette and pop-up menu, providing the ability to toggle the visibility of geometry; items hidden become visible, and items visible become hidden.

Tool Tips - New in V14.0 - SmartCAM now displays tool tips, a short descriptive text string that describes what the cursor is hovering over.

Copy Image - New in V14.0 - the File-Copy Image captures the current graphics view to the Window's clipboard to use in Setup Sheets or other documentation.