Autodesk is all set to slurp British firm Delcam for £172.5m in a bid to snatch more software to offer to the manufacturing sector. The US computer-aided design (CAD) software firm offered Delcam £20.75 per share, a premium of 21 per cent compared to the price at which the company closed on the London Stock Exchange yesterday …

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Thursday 7th November 2013 15:11 GMT John Smith 19

2 things to know about Delcam.

It used to (and for all I know still does) have it's own tool room for mfg press tools and dies (somewhat more unusual than a pinball machine in a software house).

It employed the Ukranian ~~nutjob~~ extremist who set off 3 bombs and murdered a Moslem man in his 80's as he wanted to start a "race war" in the West Midlands.

Presumably the Ukraine has plenty of ethnic unrest to be getting on with.

IIRC they are quite adept at "inverse" design. You design the part (in Autocad, Pro Engineer etc) then feed it through Delcam and it designs the sheet metal press tools and dies to make it, with varying levels of human intervention.

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1. Thursday 7th November 2013 18:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: 2 things to know about Delcam.
  
  I've been aware of Delcam through their adverts in the MechCAD trade press, and so I recognised their name in the news at the time of that nasty murder. I was in two minds as whether to mention it here, since I don't think the company needs to be associated with the incident.
  
  > You design the part (in Autocad, Pro Engineer etc) then feed it through Delcam and it designs the sheet metal press tools and dies to make it, with varying levels of human intervention.
  
  I was involved with developing a product largely made from stamped steel (though the many prototypes were spun-formed steel and then laser cut). A fair bit of fine tuning by trial and error was required to perfect the stamping press, by all accounts (it was a fairly large part, geometrically regular and sold at a premium price for its aesthetic value - so it probably required more fine tuning than most parts. CAD simulation is for reducing testing, not replacing it!)
  
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2. Thursday 7th November 2013 21:07 GMT Getriebe
  
  Re: 2 things to know about Delcam.
  
  "It used to (and for all I know still does) have it's own tool room for mfg press tools and dies (somewhat more unusual than a pinball machine in a software house)."
  
  It certainly did. I used to work for them creating very complex surfaces and then making the item and/or the cavity.
  
  I started with 7 axis machining and thought everyone had it! Wrong.
  
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  1. Friday 8th November 2013 13:14 GMT John Smith 19
    
    @Getriebe
    
    "I started with 7 axis machining and thought everyone had it! Wrong."
    
    I'd guess pretty much everything would be a come down after that.
    
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Thursday 7th November 2013 15:24 GMT Pypes

Is the 21% premium

So they can add 21st century toolpaths to artcam?

For software that costs ~ £5k / seat it has some serious shortcoming when it comes to actually spitting out useful G code.

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Friday 8th November 2013 13:19 GMT John Smith 19

@Pypes

"For software that costs ~ £5k / seat it has some serious shortcoming when it comes to actually spitting out useful G code."

I'm wondering if the "art" in it's name suggest it's more "artistic" and hence more for representation (More Autosketch than Autocad)?

But perhaps I can help with your G code

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1. Friday 8th November 2013 13:29 GMT Pypes
  
  Re: @Pypes
  
  It's for doing machine relief modeling, so you think "decent machine relief tool-paths" would be pretty high on the to-do list. There are far better programs for far less money if all you want is to knock-up a mock-up.
  
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