(1888PressRelease)
July 07, 2008 - Whether a furniture designer looks for; clean lines and alternative mediums to fashion their modern day furniture, create highly decorative designs for faux antique furniture or delve into transitional furniture design, they need a software package that will lend itself to their needs. With this purpose in mind, Delcam has released its latest computer-aided design and manufacturing (CADCAM) software range, ArtCAM 2009, produced specifically for the artisan.
ArtCAM allows the furniture designer to import a 3D model, for example a paws foot typically found in high renaissance furniture*1, import a scanned drawing/ photograph of it or one designed in another CAD package. Alternatively they can design directly within the software. The designer can then create or manipulate the artwork to create the necessary dimensions for the finished feet.
To recreate the contrasting veneer inlays typically found with the Sheraton*2 neoclassical English style, designers can use ArtCAM’s intuitive Inlay Wizard. This produces the toolpaths to cut the male and female parts of the model ensuring an exact fit. To see how their final inlays will look users can select their contrasting pieces of wood and wood grains using ArtCAM’s material simulation technology. For a modern day piece, ArtCAM can also simulate a range of other materials enabling designers to visualise their final piece of furniture.
In addition to extensive design tools available to produce features such as cabriole legs, corbels and intricate marquetry decorations, ArtCAM comes complete with a relief library, so that rosettes for Decorated Queen Anne furniture*3 for instance can simply be added to the ArtCAM model, granting a fast track route to furniture creation.
Engineered for its ease of use, ArtCAM’s structure is similar to artistic packages such as PhotoShop where the designer can utilise a number of layers to change elements of their design or form intricate and complex patterns. For creating a product range, for example a dinning table and chairs, ArtCAM’s Project tree can keep all related models together, for quick reference, accessibility and duplication of required relief layers.
For items such as cabinets and desks a vital feature is ArtCAM’s drill banks. ArtCAM can simultaneously drill equidistant holes according to the chosen spacing, location and tool width. This removes the time consuming and tedious task of manually creating individual holes.
As is usually the case, at the end of the design process approval is often required before machining can take place. To do this, rather than taking screenshots or sending large cumbersome files that may block e-mail accounts to the authorising parties, ArtCAM’s new 3D PDF viewer becomes invaluable. Users can simply click on ‘save 3D view’ for an accurate and small file that can then easily be e-mailed to all parties involved. This can then be opened with an Adobe Acrobat reader and tilted and turned to see all sides of the furniture model.
Once happy with the design the designer can then select the tools they want to use for machining from a database of over 250 machine tools. To prevent material wastage the software not only nests the pieces to be cut on their selected material according to their true shape, but it can also run a simulation of the pieces being machined using the chosen tools. This has proven extremely beneficial to current ArtCAM customers as they can change their chosen tools before machining and recalculate the toolpaths, saving them not only time but protecting their bottom line.
To find out more about this new product release and the support provided go to www.artcam.com or, http://forum.artcam.com and see how people worldwide are currently using ArtCAM. Alternatively e-mail: 2009 ( @ ) artcam dot com.
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