Celebrating the Union of CAD and CAM

The merger had been happening in slow motion over two decades, right under our eyes in plain sight. The integration of design and manufacturing, or CAD and CAM, got tighter over time. Now, manufacturing simulation is a standard part of design programs—so much so that the original term, computer-aided design, may need to be revised. This article examines the corporate handshakes, partnerships and milestone acquisitions that paved the way.To get more news about cad and cam systems, you can visit shine news official website.

Assembling Fusion 360 In 2008, Autodesk acquired Moldflow, which allows users to simulate and analyze plastic injection molding of parts. In 2012, the company also acquired HSMWorks, a CAM package. It went on to acquire Delcam, another CAM package, in 2014; Netfabb, a metal-additive simulation package, in 2015; and CAMplete, an advanced machine-tool simulation package, in 2020. In 2023, the manufacturing simulation technologies from these purchases have been woven into the digital fabric of Autodesk Fusion 360, Autodesk’s mainstream product development and manufacturing platform.

“What people want us to deliver is a seamless integration of different tools,” says Seth Hindman, director of product management and strategy, Autodesk. “Whereas HSMWorks allows us to connect CAD and CAM, Delcam gives us the breadth of manufacturing technologies we need,” notes Al Whatmough, director of product management, Autodesk.

HSMWorks was initially developed to augment SolidWorks, as apparent in its brand name. Today, HSMWorks is still available as a CAM plug-in for independent CAD packages, including SolidWorks.

“For a time, HSMWorks and Autodesk Fusion 360’s CAM tools were in parity,” says Whatmough. “But as we added the Delcam features to Fusion 360, Fusion got ahead of HSMWorks.”

After the acquisition, Autodesk continues to develop and sell CAMplete as a package for rival products to Fusion 360. However, in the integrated Fusion 360 environment, “You get instant feedback so you can make decisions in real time,” says Whatmough.

The purpose of the acquisitions is not to create “walled gardens,” according to Whatmough. However, the workflow is “much better in the intentional platform we put together,” says Hindman. “It allows us to solve a lot more problems, overcome other inhibitors and provide a better experience.”

With Moldflow, arguably the most mature of the acquired technologies, Autodesk made the strategic decision to cater to two distinct personas: An engineer with limited mold expertise and a mold expert with the need to perform complex analyses. In the engineer-targeted Moldflow Advisor, the software makes certain assumptions based on the topology (for example, meshing) to simplify the process.

But in the expert-targeted Moldflow Insight, the user makes the critical decisions and has more control. In 2020, Autodesk integrated the Moldflow solver service with Fusion 360, allowing direct access to component and mold analysis from the design program.

As a result of the CAD-CAM integration, the engineering community’s CAM expertise appears to be increasing. “In the past, we had to do 5-axis PowerMill [part of Fusion 360] demos before we could close the deal. Today, we are selling the same technology in our e-store,” says Whatmough. “Because we have made it easier for people to understand manufacturing, we now have more engineers conducting manufacturing simulation.”

At publication, Autodesk announced a preview of three new machining functions in Fusion 360: Rotary Pocket, Rotary Contour and Deburr. The latest additions are the result of a partnership between Autodesk and ModuleWorks.