Next Gen Roughing: a major CAM Assist update

Andy Cheadle
January 15, 2025
Next Gen Roughing: a major CAM Assist update

At CloudNC, we’re constantly making improvements to our CAM Assist software so it gets even better results, and fits into our users workflows even more intuitively.

While we probably drop updates a couple of times a month, the most recent (Dec 2024) is significant, as it changes how CAM Assist conducts roughing - a major element of making any component.

In the following Q&A, CloudNC CTO Andy Cheadle talks through what’s been updated - and what difference it should make to your machining outputs.

  • Hi Andy. What’s happening?

We’ve upgraded CAM Assist to include the new Next Gen Roughing feature, which substantially improves how the solution approaches roughing and greatly reduces the amount of manual editing that programmers need to make to the tool paths that CAM Assist generates. It’s a major upgrade to CAM Assist.

  • What is Next Gen Roughing?

Roughing - the process of removing a substantial amount of material in the machining of a part - is a complex process, in part because there are many ways of quickly removing large volumes of metal.

As a result of that complexity, CAM Assist’s roughing tool paths were sometimes not aligned with what users expected to see. That meant they would spend time improving the tool paths manually to their own specifications, or with their preferred tools.

Our new iteration, Next Gen Roughing, produces better tool selection, consolidates bulk and detailed roughing operations into a single roughing operation, and uses automatically generated boundaries to define the roughing area.

These advancements, while valuable on their own, can lead to improved automation of 3+2 machining and enable larger part envelopes in CAM Assist. It’s now available for all current CAM Assist integrations.

  • Can you name some specific improvements?

In particular, Next Gen Roughing improves on tool selection, working within toolpath boundaries, and with larger parts. It provides better results for 3+2 components, and is also better at considering roughing as an overall problem, rather than splitting it up into distinct stages. As a result, it is able to suggest tool paths that are better suited for the machining of the part as a whole.

  • Sounds great! Any more technical detail?

Sure! We’ve put together a technical briefing here that goes into exactly what’s been improved, and gives detail on how it works.

  • Why is this such an advance?

As roughing is a very visible element of the CNC machining process, by substantially improving performance in this area, we believe that users’ trust in the tool paths generated will be improved even further.

  • Why was roughing so difficult to improve?

Because roughing is one of the simpler tasks within machining - as it can effectively be completed with many different tools - from an AI perspective, there are so many options for it to consider that it is hard to come up with an optimal solution like a human would.

By improving the decision-making process, CAM Assist now outputs solutions that are more intuitive and appropriate, increasing trust in the solution and reducing the amount of editing required.

We really think it’s a step change in how CAM Assist is able to assist machinists - if you haven’t tried the solution yet - or, if you tried it and thought the roughing could be improved - it’s time to give it a(nother) go!

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