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.Posted on Februby Synergis Product Support Specialist, Mark Lancaster 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.

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