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Sept/Oct 2004 |
FastCAM e-Newsletter, Free to Subscribers |
Issue#
10 |
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FastCAM Inc. has a no-spam policy. This newsletter was sent to you as a registered customer or subscriber. News is strictly industry and product related.
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Are you spending more time manually reworking CAD files supplied by customers?
You're not alone. As customers become more computerized, fabricators are increasingly supplied job data in a variety of graphic file formats including DXF, DWG and sundry others.
FastCAM has well predicted this demand by allowing FastCAM to load a large range of industry standard file types. Better still, we have invented a range of 'smart' tools to automate the exchange, cleaning and cut quality of 'CAD shapes'.
It is our view that the electronic storage and management of graphic and other 'attachments' is equally important, so in addition we have designed our FastCAM® QE (Quote Everything) system to keep any associated files integrated with the quote in its own quote registry. Ready for a new way of doing business. Even B to B.
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- Cleaning up the pre-processing Bottleneck
- FastCAM CAD Smart Tools
- Converting Scanned Images or Shapes
- Can FastCAM CAD Clean pick up 'orphans'
- FastCAM Support for AutoCAD 2004
- Did you Know?
- How to Contribute or Ask a Question
- Subscribe/Unsubscribe
information
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Production relies on precision dimensions; lines, arcs, circles and entities. The problem is that some drawings created by your customers are generated 'imprecisely' in a CAD program. Imprecise because CAD systems are designed to put lines on paper whereas machining needs every line, arc or entity in precise and clean geometry. Importantly, the lines also need to be connected.
The time spent on this sort of work can really blow out (like renovation where you could have built it new in half the time!). It's difficult to recover the true cost, if any at all.
To solve this problem, FastCAM has created a suite of CAD Smart Tools.
If the geometry you have been supplied contains gaps or overlapping lines or has poorly constructed shapes, FastCAM can clean up these deficiencies and find potential issues before they reach the cutting floor. Even very small CAD lines (usually artefacts from CAD import) can be automatically blended with true arcs allowing for better definition and a higher quality cut.
These extremely useful tools are described below and are included in the FastCAM Drawing & Nesting System. They greatly reduce the time required to set up and enable fast turnaround on even highly complex parts.
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CAD-CLEAN A Smart CAD feature that eliminates the need to spend time on messy files (that can also create machine stoppages). Also automatically optimizes them ready for cutting. A great productivity tool and an extremely popular feature among users.
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 CAD-COMPRESS Another popular feature because many CAD systems produce arcs as many small line movements which is unsuitable. This feature reduces entities and replaces them with true lines and arcs. CAD file sizes can often drop 80-90%. They even cut better as well!
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CNC
BACK TO CAM/DXF Has been invaluable to users when they've lost their original drawing files!
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DXF IMPORT AND EXPORT Data eXchange format. Most commonly used file format for transferring files between CAD systems. (A BULK facility is included in the Professional version of FastCAM® NC). |
IGES IMPORT & EXPORT International Graphics Exchange System. Similar but more powerful file format than DXF. Usually found in very large systems.
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MULTI-PROCESS SUPPORT Cutting, Marking, Drilling, Tapping etc. Detection from external CAD files by layer. |
PART
EXTRACTION FROM CAD FILES Click and extract individual parts from larger drawings. (FastCAM® Professional AUTOMATICALLY extracts all parts from DXF drawings AND produces a CUTTING LIST for AUTOMATIC NESTING). |
AUTOCAD DWG IMPORT** Dead easy. Verify before cutting! Also saves having a separate CAD system just to read customer files.
** This feature is a cost plus option ($495) and only works with the current version of FastCAM. |
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NOTES: The above Smart CAD Tools are included in our FastCAM System Packages: FastCAM NC, Standard & Professional Systems. The basic FastCAM Drawing Only package includes CAD Clean and CAD Compress ONLY.
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Click Here for more information on FastCAM NC Drawing
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FastCAM sells a $395 utility program called Outline just for this purpose. It's a very simple program to use. It reads graphic files in various formats including BMP, TIFF, AWD then converts the data into DXF or CAM format suitable for processing with FastCAM®.
FastCAM Outline produces files composed of lines and arcs ensuring the generated DXF file can be converted into good NC code for your profile cutting machine.
Although less complex "thinned" images are more suitable, all images can be loaded and the result previewed before saving as a DXF file.
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Can I use CAD Clean to pick up 'orphans'?
Yes this is a feature of CAD Clean where you can eliminate miscellaneous entities outside the part boundary. CAD Clean also picks up zero length entities however you can only pick up lines and arcs on the outside of the part. This is a safety feature to prevent marking and etching lines being removed.
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The updated version of this utiltity to support AutoCAD 2004 drawing files is dead easy to use. Just one click. Saves having separate CAD systems just to read customer files. Extract cut components directly from the drawing ready to nest and cut. Verify before cutting!
This is an optional cost plus-feature ($495) available to current users of FastCAM (v5.9).
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FastCAM was involved in the initial development of the AutoCAD product
and the DXF format in 1982!
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We're interested in hearing from customers and resellers! If you have news or can suggest a topic that you think will be of interest to our reader base or if you have a fabrication problem to solve, we invite you to email us!
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Copyright 2004, FastCAM Inc.
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Copyright
© 2004, FastCAM Inc. |
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