Survey results showed that 56 percent of CAD users are aware of CAM, while 24 percent use it currently. There is a significantly higher usage of CAM in manufacturing (at 34 percent) compared to AEC or other industries (9 percent).

For those that use or plan to use CAM software, 34 percent increased their usage over the past year, and 48 percent used the same amount as the previous year. Four percent saw a decrease in usage. Six in 10 survey participants want to see “more” software development effort on CAD/CAM integration, while 70 percent think it is “important” to have machining ins t ruc t ions automatically generated from 3D CAD models.

The most used CAM software products are MasterCAM (20 percent), NX CAM (14 percent), InventorCAM (10 percent), SolidCAM (nine percent) and CAM for Fusion 360 (eight percent).

APMEN Sept 2016, News