Tools for the job

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While the automotive sector favours a handful of CAD/CAM solutions, many smaller developers are successful because they appeal to subcontractors working with OEMs. Martin Oakham reports.

Although today's high-end automotive CAD and CAM systems have multiple capabilities, their main function is to help take a car concept from the drawing board to the production line.

In terms of manufacturing capabilities, these systems must at least support numerical control (NC) tool path generation for two to five-axis milling/turning, wire/die erosion (EDM) and sheet-metal fabrication capability.

Performance is determined by a system's ability to graphically examine and visually verify machine tool paths, machine kinematics and any robotic movements. If a manufacturer wants to produce rapid prototypes, the CAD/CAM system must use STL, which is a file format native to the stereolithograhy CAD software.

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and Unigraphics Solutions are big-name developers which claim to be among the few to address these principles at the required level. But there are many smaller developers who have made significant inroads.

These include 4D Engineering (Mastercam); Open Mind (hyperMILL); Delcam (PowerMILL, FeatureCAM); Planet Systems (Pathtrace EdgeCAM); and SolidCAM.

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