GibbsCAM 2010 Includes Enhanced Productivity Tools

Gibbs and Associates has announced that it is now shipping GibbsCAM 2010, which includes a variety of new features, additions, enhancements and productivity tools. Bill Gibbs, founder and president of the company, said: 'We added many capabilities to make programming and machining easier and more efficient, especially with new features in five-axis and solids machining.

'We also implemented 64-bit operation to enable the faster processing of long programs and complex parts, added support for new tools and tool holders, extended functionality within various modules and extended and updated interoperability with various CAD [computer-aided-design] systems. 'All this is in addition to the recent integration of Volumill and making GibbsCAM compatible with the Windows 7 operating system,' he added.

GibbsCAM 2010 includes more spiral machining options, gouge check projection options, a lead-in/lead-out 'flip' option, an axial shift damp option for trimming applications and support for countersink and keyway cutters. A Surface Tools plug-in has been added to create surfaces for repairing or improving the machining of surfaces from solids. An Adaptive Cuts option enables the user to regulate the distance between paths based upon the angle of the surface to be machined to provide a consistent surface finish, regardless of surface angle.

The Impeller Roughing option has been enhanced with functionality that covers more contingencies, which is useful when roughing near and around splitter blades. A new option, called the Retract Through Tube Center, enables the user to retract cutting tools from angled pockets while avoiding walls, which is useful for machining cylinder head ports and similar geometry. A more capable Plunge Roughing option is no longer a plug-in but a tile in the computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM) palette, with the ability to calculate material removal strategies that accommodate carbide-inserted drills, which require special motion for no-drag retractions, while avoiding collision in tight or narrow areas.

Enhancements to advanced 3D machining include the addition of Hit Flats with specified tools for pocketing, the ability to specify flatness tolerance in Flats Cut to ensure that all desired 'flat' areas are machined, a locking high feed rate for the Shortest Route and Minimal Vertical retract styles, the addition of Trim to Ramp Advance as a Contour option for waterline cuts, specifying surface finish with step-over distance or scallop height parameters and the use of the Stock Bounding Box as an additional machining boundary. Facet bodies, generated from a previous machining process, or brought in through a data file, can now be used as initial stock in solid pocketing.

The 64-bit implementation allows the user to take advantage of the more powerful multi-processor PCs equipped with 4Gb or more of RAM. This provides tighter interoperability with 64-bit CAD systems that are co-resident with GibbsCAM on a PC. Also, 64-bit operation reduces computation time when processing long programs or working with complex geometry. It will also enable users to take advantage of system enhancements when running under the Windows 7 operating system.

GibbsCAM 2010 includes features to extend functionality, including enhancements to the user interface and for the milling, multi-task machining and wire EDM modules, as well as new add-ins for data exchange to support Inventor 2010 and Solidworks 2010 and additional CAD file import and translation. The Macros menu has been enhanced with changes to facilitate access, to allow for uninterrupted operation and to support five-axis and advanced 3D processes and calls to plug-ins.

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