Release Notes

Next Generation Roughing now available

• Go to the Advanced Tab, under Preview Features, Next Generation Roughing is now available. The alternate selection is ‘Current Roughing Strategy.’

• Next Generation Roughing produces better tool selection, consolidates bulk and detailed roughing operations into a single roughing operation, and uses automatically generated boundaries to define the roughing area. These advancements, while valuable on their own, also produce improved automation of 3+2 and enable larger part envelopes in CAM Assist.

• For small parts, Current Roughing will always choose the largest available tool in the toolset for the first roughing toolpath. Next Generation Roughing is often able to select a more appropriate size of tool, especially when a smaller tool is needed anyway and the larger tool is not worthwhile using. Next Generation Roughing will make a choice based on an optimisation specific to the part, and it can choose more or less intermediate tool diameters depending on the impact on machining time.

  In the image ‘Example 1,’ Current roughing on the left and Next Generation Roughing on the right.

• Every Next Generation Roughing toolpath has a machining boundary. Unlike the current roughing strategy, where each toolpath could go anywhere on the model between the top and bottom height of the toolpath, Next Generation Roughing has the additional limitation to a particular area. This means that toolpaths are more likely to be limited to the area where machining is needed and no more. It also reduces the problem of whisper cuts by simply reducing the amount of the part that is visible to the toolpath algorithm. See image ‘Example 2’ for a comparison of current (on the left) and Next Generation Roughing output.

   

  We encourage you to try Next Gen Rouging in CAM Assist. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know!

   

Support for Round Stock

• Mastercam uses a different approaches to create round stock

  • Creation of cylindrical stock

  • Using the Bounding Box

• CAM Assist now supports round stock when it is designed as cylindrical stock or via the Bounding box method.

Workholding security update

• Workholding security in each Setup now directly relates to the Workholding security value used in the Cutting Parameters engine (As can be viewed in the Application Input Tab).

• The choice of Workholding security level ranges from ‘Very poor’ to ‘Excellent’:

  • Very Poor - the lowest level of workholding security, such as a thin part held by a soft jaw, will result in CAM Assist selecting smaller tools or less aggressive cutting parameters. This will produce slower toolpaths, but with less force on the workpiece. The workholding force for the Very Poor setting is 50N.

  • Poor - The workholding force for the Poor setting is 200N.

  • Moderate - The workholding force for the Moderate setting is 500N.

  • Good - The workholding force for the Good setting is 1000N.

  • Very Good - The workholding force for the Very Good setting is 1500N.

  • Excellent - the highest level of workholding security, such as a vise with serrated jaws, will result in CAM Assist selecting larger tools or more aggressive cutting parameters. This will result in faster toolpaths, but with more force on the workpiece. The workholding force for the Excellent setting is 3000N.

Automatic 3+2

• Automatic 3+2 has was previously available to some customers in a preview state. It is now generally available.

  • With Automatic selected as the 3+2 mode, CAM Assist will calculate tool approach directions automatically, determining the most optimal solution.

  • For best results, use only in combination with the Next Generation Roughing strategy.

Tool use is now selected with a checkbox

• Prior to this change the material selection in the Tool Use table showed an abbreviation of the Stock material. The selection is now a checkbox.

Additional alloys now available

• New alloys are now available for Aluminum and Stainless Steel stock materials. These alloys are configured to work with AI-driven Cutting Parameters.

Hole Axis can now be selected to define tool orientation for 3+2 operations

Tool change time input has been moved to the Export tab in the Cycle Time Estimator

Scale factor for Cycle Time Estimator is used to compensate for discrepancies between the calculated cycle time, and the actual machining time. This is necessary due to acceleration and deceleration during actual machining, equipment efficiency, and other factors. For example if the initial cycle time estimate is 20 minutes, but the actual machining time is 30 minutes, setting the Scale Factor to 150% would be needed.

The Machine variables are now more consolidated, with the values available from the Mastercam machine definition no longer being shown.

Multiple tool libraries can now be used in the Cycle Time Estimator view

Subsequent to this release, there will be a notification in the add-on if an updated version is available.

New support for Multiple Tool Libraries

• Multiple tool libraries can now be selected on the General tab

• Up to five (5) tool libraries can be selected

• Note - a large amount of available tools may have performance effects on CAM Assist

New Material selection workflow

• Materials are now selected in the Tool Use tab

• Stock material and Stock material alloy now used to define material

• Material selection now synchronized to the selections available in Cutting Parameters Explorer

• This effectively triples the number of default materials that can be used with CAM Assist

• Material selection now persistent

• Note - For user-defined Presets, use Generic alloy

Control of toolpath generation

• In the Advanced tab control of when toolpaths are generated now available

• If Toolpath Generation is set to ‘Ask each time,' a confirmation message will ask the user if they want to generate at the conclusion of CAM Assist.

• This feature allows users the opportunity to have control of the toolpaths generated by CAM Assist, without waiting for all of them to generate in Mastercam first

Tool Change Time in Cycle Time Estimation

• Tool change times are now part of the Cycle Time Estimation results. These variables are entered into the Machine Configuration section of of the Cycle Time Estimator.

• Note - this feature is only available for Mastercam 2025.

Cycle Time Estimations can be ‘stacked’

• With each run of the Cycle Time Estimator, results will accumulate. This allows for an estimator to run multiple cycles of the tool, adding estimation sequences

• In the Cycle Time Estimates tab of the Cycle Time Estimator, there is now a ‘Clear all’ button, this clears off results so that a new round of estimates can be generated.

• Note - this feature is only available for Mastercam 2025.

Cutting Parameters now supports Helical Boring

• Helical boring (hole making, finishing) operations are now supported in the Cutting Parameters Explorer.

In-app update notices

• For subsequent updates to CAM Assist, user notifications will appear within the add-on interface.

Renamed the ‘Network section’ to ‘Network setting’ (see the Advanced tab).

Added more detail to message in the network section to: ‘Please note the following settings only take effect on subsequent runs of CAM Assist. After editing these settings, cancel and reopen CAM Assist. The settings will persist for all future sessions’.

Improved the feedback to the user when encountering issues with network connection.