Autodesk PowerMill 2022.1

With Christmas on the way (and thanksgiving even closer), we’re pleased to announce the release of the latest update to Autodesk’s CAM software Fusion 360 with PowerMill (version 2022.1). This release includes a bumper collection of speed-ups, usability improvements, and a sneak preview of a really nice new toolpath coming in the near future.

PowerMill 2022.1 –

In this blog, we’ll provide a brief overview of the top 6 highlights in this specific release. We’ll also provide links to more detailed tutorial videos (for those of you wanting to see the improvements in action).

1. Background NC program and toolpath verification

Verification! Arguably one of the most important things you can do if you’re outputting NC code to drive a CNC machine. Regardless of the cost of your CNC machine (whether it be an entry-level 3-axis router or a top-of-the-range, 5-axis wonder), it’s essential you can validate the safety of your machining process before going anywhere near your actual machine to find and avoid machine collisions, near-misses, and axis over-travel.

PowerMill has provided the ability to check toolpaths and NC programs for these common issues for a number of years. Crucially (with previous releases) the verification itself was carried out using what’s called the “foreground processor”. In simple terms, this means that the verification consumes 100% of your computer resources – stopping you from doing anything else. This latest release of PowerMill (2022.1) changes this and includes an option to “queue” the verification so that it uses the “background processor”. How does this change things? Well, the answer is big time! The background processor doesn’t consume 100% of your resources, meaning you cancontinue with other CAM programming tasks while the verification is being processed behind the scenes.