WorkNC CAM software is the premier automatic CNC software for surface or solid models in mold, die and tooling businesses for 2 to 5-axis CNC programming. WorkNC is used by all western, Japanese and Korean automotive makers and well-known OEMs from a range of other industries. WorkNC is best of breed, complementary CAM software that enhances all design and manufacturing systems by providing the most reliable, efficient, easy-to-program cutter paths, resulting in unmatched productivity and safety. WorkNC's 2-axis and 2½-axis strategies are specifically designed for fast machining of support plates and assembly parts. Machining preparation can be carried out on 2D or 3D models created with WorkNC or imported from another system using one of the powerful CAD translators. 3D models can be machined automatically. Roughing and re-roughing are used to machine pockets, and then flat surface machining and drilling functions are used for the rest. Numerous WorkNC 2D curve machining functions are available for machining directly from independent 2D entities or curves extracted from 3D models. WorkNC curve machining strategies bring significant productivity gains as they are highly tolerant and can be successfully used on damaged and intersecting 2D geometries. > Automatic Drilling Automatic plate or 3D part drilling is based on automatic feature recognition performed by WorkNC. The features are then automatically processed using customized, pre-determined drilling sequences. Automatic recognition of cylindrical forms, Automatic features creation according to detected axes or angled planes, Pre-defined drilling sequence selection, Automatically generated drilling operations, Deep hole and intersecting hole drilling management. The company produces a large number of electrodes which it requires to spark the complex cavities it produces, so the reliability of WorkNC is an essential element in its production cycle. John Harvey explains, “When quoting, our customers send us a wide range of different CAD formats. Translation into WorkNC CAD is very easy and foolproof. Once we have the go ahead we can then import the 3D tool models in WorkNC CAD to extract the electrode shapes directly from the design data. Once the electrodes are inside our software we quickly analyze the electrode geometry for the smallest radius so we know the minimum cutter size required, we check draft angles and simply select a machining sequence from a set of standard machining routines that we have developed over the years. We apply this sequence to the new geometry to automatically create a new set of toolpaths which are perfectly adapted to each new electrode. It is easy to underestimate the complexity of this task and to forget about the problems associated with producing roughing and finishing electrodes from the same geometry. WorkNC makes it all very straightforward.