DMG/Mori Seiki recently announced the release of a Mori-APT toolpath-based post processor, available September 2013. The new post processor is a part of its simple, integrated and powerful suite of applications called Manufacturing Suite. This universal post processor will be available for all Mori Seiki machines and will work with any CAM software that outputs toolpaths in Mori-APT standardized format. The Manufacturing Suite Post Processor software comes with proven post templates to output NC code for all Mori Seiki machines.

The post processor can be a bottleneck for customers—who may struggle to successfully leverage their machine-tool investment. DMG/Mori Seiki invested time and money to proactively enhance user experience by working with all major CAM vendors and to develop a template-based post processor for MAPPS. The result, Mori-Post, was released in 2007. Mori-Post features a generic input interface (and the Mori-APT formatted toolpath); CAM vendors can now use the generic Mori-APT input interface in their software.

The Mori-APT toolpath format is an extension of APT CLDATA standard (based on ANSI NCITS 37-1999 and ISO 4343:2000). The Manufacturing Suite Post Processor can import the standardized toolpath from any CAM software and generate NC code using the proven DMG/ Mori Seiki post templates. For the process to work, customers need to acquire the Mori-APT CLDATA interface-enabled version of the CAM software from their respective CAM vendors and acquire the Manufacturing Suite Post Processor software from DMG/Mori Seiki.

Traditionally, customers are required to purchase machine tools and CAM/post processing software from different vendors, leading to discrepancies in quality, thoroughness and timely delivery. Furthermore, without quality post processors, the CAM-generated program may not run successfully on the machine tool. Now, DMG/Mori Seiki delivers the machine tool and the corresponding Manufacturing Suite Post Processor software, allowing customers to hit the ground running as soon as a machine lands on their shop floor. Customers can continue to use multiple CAM software solutions in conjunction with Manufacturing Suite Post Processor to generate NC code, now avoiding the needs to procure post processors for individual CAM software and with the added benefit of a single support contact. The Post Processor that is a part of Manufacturing Suite also includes additional software application modules such as, “NC Simulation” for virtual machine NC code and collision detection verification, and “Program Manager” for sending and receiving NC programs and parameters between PC and machine tools.

CAM software vendors Autodesk, Cimatron, FeatureCAM, Geometric, GibbsCAM, PartMaker and TopSolid have expressed an interest in working with DMG/Mori Seiki to develop interfaces to output Mori-APT CLDATA. As of the date of this press release, the following CAM products offer Mori-APT CLDATA interfaces:
Mill: CAMWorks, CimatronE, FeatureCAM, GibbsCAM, HSMWorks, Mastercam, ParkMaker, TopSolid
Turn: CAMWorks, FeatureCAM, GibbsCAM