Thirty years at the leading edge

The company says it is just as ‘leading edge' as it was when it was first launched in collaboration with Surrey University in the early 1980s.

At that time the software called Pathtrace developed in 1983 was DOS-based. Its brands were known as PMS (Pathtrace Manufacturing System) and PAMS (Pathtrace Advanced Manufacturing System). It became Edgecam on the same day as Windows 95 was released utilising the new operating system. 

Edgecam general manager Raf Lobato said: “The first release of Edgecam in 1995 took a DOS-based textual menu-driven system into a Windows look and feel with graphical icons replacing textual menus.

“At that time it was a traditional wireframe and surface-based CAD/CAM system. However, with the development of Mechanical Desktop and Pro Engineer, followed by SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Inventor, mid-range solid-based CAD systems took off. So rather than basing its new software on a solid-based kernel, Edgecam chose the route of supporting all major solid kernels in 1999.

“This meant we didn't need to translate the CAD data and to this day many other systems still have problems transferring data via independent format, such as IGES. But all formats are readily imported into Edgecam with no loss of integrity."

He continued: “Edgecam adopted the solid-based technology as we believed that was where CAD systems would go. We expected people to move from wireframe and surface-based CAD to solid-based systems which would ensure model integrity, allowing CAD models to be built quicker and more accurately for many purposes including visualisations, assembly building and manufacturing.”

Today's Edgecam includes Strategy Manager and Waveform Roughing and a new launch application called Workflow which automatically loads a part in the correct manufacturing environment with datum set. The application is being unveiled in the next release, Edgecam 2013 R2.

Strategy Manager was said to be the first flexible knowledge base manufacturing solution allowing users to easily dictate and store their own manufacturing processes and Waveform Roughing, which maximises material removal rates while prolonging both tool and machine tool life, has been described by manufacturers as 'pushing the boundaries of traditional milling'. 

Mr Lobato explains that back in 1995 the philosophy behind the new name of Edgecam reflected the software's advantages as it moved from DOS to being Windows-based.

“The original Pathtrace had been leading edge right from its inception. In those days most CAM software was designed for mainframe systems, but when the first generation of PCs came along Pathtrace embraced these small machines, believing, quite rightly, that they were the future, and created PMS for the popular Commodore Pet,” he explained.

In 1988 Pathtrace developed PAMS for the emerging IBM PC market. The old PMS was a command line-driven system where users had to know the commands and execute them. Conversely, PAMS allowed users to select from onscreen menus.

Edgecam is currently used in 26 countries, with over 100 direct employees and 52 resellers around the world. The brand became part of the Planit Group in 2006, which, in turn, was acquired by Vero Software in 2011.
Edgecam will be celebrating its 30th anniversary with reseller conferences in Prague, Phoenix and Bangkok.

Edgecam
www.edgecam.com