Fabricate better: the new features in PowerMill 2021

This article was contributed by  Alex Alvarez of KETIV Technologies.

Autodesk’s flagship CAM software, PowerMill just keeps getting better and better. Ever since the acquisition of Delcam, Autodesk has made it their mission to not only focus on core user experience, but to ensure that software usability, reliability and speed keeps enhancing every release. Below we’ll cover a few of our favorite improvements with the latest release of PowerMill 2021.

Speed
One of the biggest improvements that took place the PowerMill 2021 release was calculation speed. Commands such as finding/avoiding collisions, toolpath calculation and processing stock models have all been improved and the results are quite astonishing. Below you’ll see a chart comparing the calculation speeds with respect to PowerMill 2020:


One speed improvement that stands out, in particular, is faster toolpath calculation. Specifically, on the roughing toolpaths there have been cases where speed improvements were up by up to 30 percent! Other strategies such as rest machining strategies also showed up to a 20 percent increase. The bottom line here is that the faster you can program a part, the faster you can get it out to the shop floor and make chips.

In addition to faster toolpath calculation times, collision checking/avoidance features have also seen improvements. One of the paramount features that makes PowerMill what it is – is its ability to verify potential issues prior to posting out code. These powerful algorithms not only notify users of potential issues, but it takes it one step further by applying collision avoidance to problematic toolpath sections. Depending on machine capabilities and user settings, the software can leverage 5 axis capabilities and automatically tilt the tool in a controlled manner, avoiding any possible collisions.

All of these features are computation-intensive, however, when running a benchmark against PowerMill 2020, customers have seen gains of 20 percent with PowerMill 2021. A U.S.-based mold manufacturer even reported seeing collision avoidance calculation times reduced by 65 percent on average.

Steep and Shallow Finishing
If you have been a long time PowerMill user, you’ll know that finishing strategies are the bread and butter of this tool. One of my favorite finishing strategies, out of many, is the steep and shallow finishing strategy. It’s extremely versatile and when used correctly can yield a really nice surface finish. One drawback however to this strategy was when users selected check surfaces to limit the extent of the toolpath, occasionally the software would leave behind some toolpath fragmentation, as seen below:


The algorithm behind this strategy has been enhanced and now reduces the amount of fragmentation caused by check surfaces and gives a much smoother toolpath, as seen below:


There’s More…
These are just a few of our favorite enhancements that PowerMill 2021 has to offer. For a deeper dive into what has been improved, you can watch the official PowerMill 2021 release presented by Marketing Manager Clinton Perry.

Based on benchmark testing there is no doubt that this release of PowerMill is much faster than any other release. These time-saving features could mean a larger ROI for both your software and machine investment.