Another CAM application joins the club

Delcam is going to demonstrate its new CAM system at SolidWorks World 2010.  According to Delcam, this new version of their software is called Delcam for SolidWorks and it will be integrated within SolidWorks.  In this, it joins the small but growing club of CAM applications that run inside of the SolidWorks environment.

The application is said to initially support drilling for 2 through 5 axis milling.  Delcam claims that “future releases will cover the full range of machining operations, including turning, mill-turn and wire EPM.”  They also claim that Delcam for SolidWorks is more intelligent than other CAM systems in that it will be able to review and correct the choice of cutting tools and machining strategies for existing toolpaths.  They also claim, “all toolpaths generated with Delcam for SolidWorks can be checked by the integrated simulation module on the computer before being passed to the machine tool.”

Here’s an early press image:

Early press image
Early press image

It should be interesting to see all the CAM offerings at SolidWorks 2010.  It wasn’t all that long ago when the number of CAM applications that ran within the SolidWorks environment could be counted on one finger.  It now seems that one will need their whole hand. 🙂