100% HSMWorks technology, with no compromises made to the feature set.

HSMWorks says HSMXpress was created to show designers, engineers, and even veteran CNC programmers that integrated CAM not only makes sense, but is essential. The company says HSMXpress is a “truly integrated CAM system for 2D and 2-1/2 D CNC programming” that can be used to turn designs into real machined parts. Graves called the announcement the most important day in HSMWorks’ history. DE’s Publisher, Tom Conlon, was at the show and interviewed Graves about the new product.

A 32-bit version is also available.Īnthony Graves, marketing director for HSMWorks, made the HSMXpress announcement today at the Performance Racing Industry trade show in Orlando. What’s interesting with this move is that HSMWorks isn’t known for working with Inventor: It’s been established on the basis of a SolidWorks integrated CAM approach – the clue is in the name.HSMWorks has released HSMXpress, a free CAM solution that the company says allows all licensed users of SolidWorks 2009 or newer to create high-quality toolpaths using the latest in 64-bit and multi-core technology.

Also many of the smaller vendors are owned by one or two people, many of whom are coming up for retirement and presumably want to cash in and disappear onto the golf course (or wherever software execs go to live out their days). The market is massively fragmented – fragmented in terms of process and industry specialism, but also geographically fragmented as well. The CAM market is one ripe for consolidation. So while many have been talking about it for a while, today’s news that Autodesk has acquired “ Certain assets of HSMWorks” is a bit of a surprise. CAM means investment, knowledge and specialism. Cocking up a 3D model is one thing, but if you’ve got someone that’s just scrapped 25 grand’s worth of tool steel because the toolpaths are wrong is an entirely different game. The reasons are many but there’s a theory that the process of producing G-code for CNC machines is too fraught with issues. While the traditional “high-end” players, Siemens with NX, Dassault with Catia and PTC with Pro/Engineer, have always had CAM offering, the mainstream vendors such as SolidWorks, Autodesk and others haven’t. As Jimmy Greaves used to say “It’s a funny old game.” The world of Computer Aided Machining is something that many of the mainstream 3D design tool vendors have consistently dodged.

Hsm cam