CAD:What is CAD
Description
What is CAD/CAM?
CAD Computer Aided Design or Drafting. Inputting lines, arcs, coordinates, dimensions and text for engineering purposes not onto paper but into a data base. The beauty of this is the ability to manipulate the data in many ways during and after completion of any job. There are many types of CAD systems and brand names, but you can break it down into two types, 2D and 3D.
2Dimensional almost like drawing on a drafting board, essentially a flat view usually dimensioned and detailed to some type of standard but is somewhat limited. 3Dimensional is very popular, and with the ability to manipulate 3D Models as if they were actual solid objects, very desirable. Each 3D model is an exact replica of an existing object or idea of an object but in digital format which can be up scaled or down scaled or modified to any specific tolerance. These digital objects are then ready for multiple views, or cross sections, dimensions and details, just like 2D drawings. But 3D models have much more to offer, NC programming can be done to create actual products, see CAM, or even for graphic development for the animation industry, which is also very popular. CAM Computer Aided Manufacturing, in some cases the manufacturing of parts, fixture gauges, stamping dies, prototype models, moulds etc. The relation to Mach9 Technologies Inc. is not so much Manufacturing but more Computer Aided.
CAM the use of computer generated 3D models,see CAD, to develop specific programs for any particular solid object. Creating a program, cutter path, for an Numeric Control (NC) machine is the most widely used format for cutting various forms, shapes and contours into various materials such as steel, aluminum, tool board, wood, and machinable waxes. There are many other ways to cut materials which are computer controlled as well, and these processes are highly sophisticated in each of their aspects. NC machines are everywhere producing products every day.
Remarks
The term CAD/CAM is a shortening of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM). The term CAD/NC (Numerical Control) is equivalent in some industries. Well before the development of Computer-aided Design the manufacturing world adopted tools controlled by numbers and letters to fill the need for manufacturing complex shapes in an accurate and repeatable manner, especially for aircraft components. During the 1950's these Numerically-Controlled machines used the existing technology of paper tapes with regularly spaced holes punched in them (think of the paper roll that makes an old-fashioned player piano work, but only one inch wide) to feed numbers into controller machines that were wired to the motors positioning the work on machine tools. The electro-mechanical nature of the controllers allowed digital technologies to be easily incorporated as they were developed.
By the late 1960's Numerically-Controlled machining centers were commercially available incorporating a variety of machining processes and automatic tool changing. Such tools were capable of doing work on multiple surfaces of a workpiece, moving the workpiece to positions programmed in advance and using a variety of tools - all automatically. What is more, the same work could be done over and over again with extraordinary precision and very little additional human input. NC tools immediately raised automation of manufacturing to a new level once feedback loops were incorporated (the tool tells the computer where it is, while the computer tells it where it should be). What finally made NC technology enormously successful was the development of the universal NC programming language called APT (Automatically Programmed Tools). Announced at MIT in 1962, APT allowed programmers to develop postprocessors specific to each type of NC tool so that the output from the APT program could be shared among different parties with different manufacturing capabilities. The development of Computer-aided design had little effect on CNC initially due to the different capabilities and file formats used by drawing and machining programs, but as Cad applications such as SolidWorks and AutoCad incorporate Cam intelligence, and as Cam applications such as MasterCam adopt sophisticated Cad tools both designers and manufacturers are now enjoying an increasing variety of capable Cad/Cam software. Most CAD/CAM software was developed for product development and the design and manufacturing of components and molds, but they are being used by architects with greater frequency. CAD/CAM software utilizes Cad drawing tools designed ultimately to describe geometries in such a manner that they can be extracted by the Cam portion of the program to define a toolpath that will direct the motion of a machine tool to machine the same shape that was drawn. Today, over three-quarters of new machine tools incorporate CNC technologies. These tools are used in every conceivable manufacturing sector, including many affecting building technologies. CNC technology is related to Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), Computer-Aided Process Planning (CAPP) and other technologies such as Group Technology (GT) and Cellular Manufacturing. Finally, Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) and Just-In-Time Production (JIT) are important concepts made possible by Numerically-Controlled Machines, affecting the integration of manufacturing cells, productivity and quality in a wide variety of strategic industries.
