Summary for 2022.0 Beta 1

Toolpath improvements

• New Rest Finishing strategy. This is a new strategy that identifies rest areas of material such as corners, and machines them in different styles in steep and shallow areas. The rest areas are identified from a reference tool and the toolpath will cover all areas a matching rest boundary would have identified.
• The identification of horizontal areas of the model has been improved, preventing the chamfering of corners that occurred previously. PMILL-12601
• It is now possible to automatically exclude horizontal areas of the model when calculating a toolpath, to facilitate machining with more suitable tools subsequently. PMILL-14776
• Automatic collision avoidance is now available for Rotary toolpaths. PMILL-14939
• Tilting of the tool to avoid collisions now takes account of tool axis limits that restrict motion to 4 axes. PMILL-14939
• The calculation of Constant Z toolpaths when using the Machine Maximum Stock option has been made faster. PMILL-12099
• Options are now available to manually control the projection range in the Surface Projection and Curve Projection toolpath strategies. PMILL-14053
• The start points of successive closed passes can now be staggered to maintain forward motion. PMILL-15055

Toolpath fixes

• Some situations where Area Clearance could gouging the part have been fixed. PMILL-11679, PMILL-11804
• Cases where the Profile Area Clearance calculations were excessively slow have been sped up. PMILL-12880, PMILL-14184
• The 3D filleting option has been removed from Vortex Area Clearance. PMILL-13912, PMILL-13913
• The Machine Flats dropdown is enabled when using Flat in Slice Area Clearance. PMILL-14664
• The Maintain Cut Direction checkbox is enabled when using Offset Model in Area Clearance. PMILL-14664
• A problem has been fixed that could cause Prevent Rest Boundary to incorrectly find rest material. PMILL-14002
• A problem has been fixed that cause PowerMill to close unexpectedly when using 3D Filleting. PMILL-14912, PMILL-14917
• A problem has been fixed that prevented Collision Avoidance from tilting the tool to avoid a collision. PMILL-15086
• A problem has been fixed that prevented Collision Avoidance from working correctly when used in conjunction with the Machine Undercuts option within Constant Z. PMILL-14998
• A problem has been fixed that caused the centreline passes within a 3D Offset toolpath to be machined before they should have been. PMILL-13072, PMILL-13464, PMILL-14451
• A problem has been fixed that caused spikes down a vertical wall in a Steep and Shallow toolpath. PMILL-14793
• A problem has been fixed that caused the ordering of a Steep and Shallow toolpath using the Top First option to be incorrect. PMILL-14571, PMILL-14761
• A problem has been fixed that caused the calculation of a Surface Projection toolpath to cause PowerMill to stop responding. PMILL-14848
• A problem has been fixed that prevented the calculation of an additive Feature Construction toolpath. PMILL-14637

General fixes

• A significant speed up has been made when projects are saved and only specific things have changed, such as the toolpath drawing state and the addition of new model surfaces. PMILL-10712
• When switching on the instrumentation option for Patterns, PowerMill no longer takes a long time to display the arrow directions. PMILL-14513

Customer error reporting (CER)

• A problem has been fixed that could cause PowerMill to close unexpectedly when using Feature Area Clearance. This issue was identified by CER. PMILL-14954

Installation

For further information about Autodesk PowerMill Installation please visit Product Installation.

Further Information

For further information about Autodesk PowerMill and its system requirements please visit PowerMill Overview.

Thank You...

We thank all our customers who identified these issues and reported them to Autodesk. These reports give us the opportunity to improve the product and provide you with the best solutions for manufacture. Autodesk also thanks you for your continued support and feedback regarding the content of this update release.

Respectfully,

Autodesk PowerMill Product Team