Autodesk FeatureCAM 2020

Autodesk announced the new release FeatureCAM 2020. This solution automates your workflow from design to NC Code, reducing programming time and producing consistent results for CNC Milling, turning, and wire applications.



About Autodesk FeatureCAM. FeatureCAM brings greater capabilities for more complex machine use on prismatic parts — such as 3+3 axis machining.

Alongside the Delcam/Autodesk products that have addressed the, often unique, demands of the mould and die industry, there’s also another product, FeatureCAM, that automates the CNC programming workflow.

Unlike PowerMill, which focusses on the machining of complex forms and surfaces, FeatureCAM instead concentrates on the machining of more prismatic, perhaps less complex, components, where both time-toprogram and machining cycle times are most important.

FeatureCAM’s key focus is the extraction of features from your CAD geometry with associated operations, enabling you to define best practice and allow for reuse as often and as quickly as possible. Whether that geometry is drawn using the tools within the system or using data imported from another system, the workflow is similar.

While FeatureCAM’s origins were as a 2.5 and 3-axis milling focussed system, it quickly expanded to include turning, then combined the two in the turn-mill centres and, more recently, Swiss-type lathes.

These machines have gained increasing adoption in the last few years and the more recent releases have also seen improvements of more complex, but increasingly commonplace, machining from 3+2 to 5-axis simultaneous.

About Autodesk PartMaker. Alongside FeatureCAM, there’s also PartMaker. This was acquired by Delcam some years ago and addresses the often unique needs of those programming for Swiss Lathe type machines.

While the adoption of multi-tasking lathes has been growing of late, the Swiss Lathe takes the combining of both mill and turn parts concurrently to the extreme. Here, cycle time is fundamental, particularly on high-precision components such as speciality fasteners and small mechanical components (its name is derived from early use in the watch making industry).

PartMaker is still an active product and receiving active development. In fact, this release sees additions such as support for laser machining, keyway broaching (and, if you’ve not seen a Swiss Lathe working with a laser, ten minutes spent on Youtube is a good investment of your time).

That said, due to increasing overlap in capabilities, PartMaker has been bundled with the high-end FeatureCAM offering (FeatureCAM Ultimate).

It might also be worth assuming that eventually all of the unique tools in PartMaker will transition into FeatureCAM.

Learn how to use part handling when programming multiple work offsets for a lathe, turn-mill or Swiss-type lathe. This includes transferring a part from the main to sub spindle whether you are using a slug or bar.


About Autodesk. Autodesk helps people imagine, design and create a better world. Everyone—from design professionals, engineers and architects to digital artists, students and hobbyists—uses Autodesk software to unlock their creativity and solve important challenges.

Product: Autodesk FeatureCAM
Version: 2020 Ultimate
Supported Architectures: x64
Website Home Page : www.autodesk.com
Language: multilanguage
System Requirements: PC
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7even or newer
Size: 2.1 Gb