noviembre 4, 2005

Record number of WorkNC customers attend V18 presentations in France

A record number of WorkNC customers attended a series of presentations held across France thoughout October, where the wealth of new functions and features available in WorkNC Version 18, all aimed at dramatically improving productivity, were presented.

The presentations included a live demo on a Huron KX10 machine of V18’s innovative Adaptive Troichoidal Roughing toolpath for hard materials milling, as well as a presentation from Cetim (technical centre for the mechanical industries) on the results of tests run using WorkNC Version 18 functionalities. Cetim revealed that WorkNC’s enhanced Auto 5 functionality (which automatically converts 3-axis into 5-axis toolpaths) dramatically reduced programming times and provided very reliable automatic collision avoidance. Cetim also bore testimony to the smoothness of WorkNC’s new Spiral Core Roughing and Adaptive Troichoidal Roughing toolpaths.

Gilles Pernoud, MD of the Georges Pernoud company, the leading plastic injection mould maker from France’s “Plastics Valley”, described how, using a range of the new functionalities in V18, his company significantly exceed its objective of using a minimum of 80% machining capacity over 7 days and with a further enhancement to the finish of the parts.

Many of the V18 innovations presented to customers were the result of direct feedback from customers surveyed earlier this year and included :

- New toolpaths for hard materials milling including Adaptive Trochoidal Roughing,
- Dynamic collision management for 3-axis roughing and re-roughing toolpaths enabling the generation of collision free roughing toolpaths regardless of the size of the tool, the shape and size of the toolholder or the shape of the part,
- New Spiral Core Roughing improving the quality of the surface, while significantly reducing the cycle time,
- Optimized finishing toolpaths including an efficient new Z-level finishing toolpath,
- Numerous 5-axis developments :
* A new smoothing function and options to accelerate, simplify and guarantee the reliability of Auto 5’s automatic 3-axis to 5-axis toolpath conversion,
* A range of toolpaths allowing users to machine deep cavities with special tools,
* A suite of toolpaths (roughing, re-roughing and finishing) for machining simple or complex impellers as well as a new 5-axis laser cutting toolpath and a 4-axis machining toolpath.
- A new, easy to use, integral 2/4-axis Wire EDM module,
- The integration of a hybrid 3D solid/surface modeler in WorkNC-CAD.

The WorkNC Version 18 release will be phased over the following 6 months depending on the country.