SmartCAM v17.5 has been upgraded to ACIS R21.0, the most current ACIS solid modeling kernel available. This upgrade ensures compatibility with solid models created by the current CAD systems.

The ACIS R21 update has changed how surfaces are tessellated into facets. Solids and surfaces are tessellated for purposes of displaying shaded surfaces in the SmartCAM graphics view and when exporting solids to STL files.

When saving STL, both surface and facet elements are now written to the STL file. Previous versions only supported surface elements. This capability allows STL models read into SmartCAM to be resaved to an STL file.

SmartCAM v17.5 Data Translator libraries have updated to ensure compatibility with design model file types supported by current CAD systems.

• SOLIDWORKS Connection for SOLIDWORKS 2010
• DXF to accept Autodesk DXF 2010 files
• DWG to accept Autodesk DWG 2010 files

SmartCAM will now automatically check for updates to your SmartCAM products. If an update is available, you will be notified of it with a link to allow you jump to the SmartCAM download page.

The Code Generator Template has been improved to allow you to output multi-line Planner notes fields to your NC code output file. The template allows you to specify marker characters to search for in the note field to mark the beginning and end of the text to output, pre- and post-fix characters to add to each output line of text, the JOS (Job Operation Setup) data tag to read, and a line length maximum.

Due to a user request, a toggle switch has been added to the Display Modes dialog box to allow the default white-background and black-foreground colors to be inverted to black-background and white-foreground.

A new "Purge" option added to the Modify Container dialog box letting you to delete the contents of a container immediately, without requiring you to first unpack it.

The Retrieve User Element Text macro in SmartCAM V17.5 retrieves the text from a User Command or Text element.

The new Layer By Name macro command added to SmartCAM V17.0 returns the layer number for the first layer with the given layer name.

Sort by Tool Number sorts the step list first by the tool number (turret/tool in turning products) then by step number. This feature is useful when the same tool has been used in multiple steps, allowing steps to be viewed or output in ascending tool order.

A new setting allows users to override default Insert Bar behavior and default the Insert Bar to On Layer, even if a process model has been loaded.

A new utility menu command, Remove Unused Layers will delete any unassigned layers that do not contain any geometry in the current process model.

The Layer List View will now display the Layer's name.

Element Data responds better to keyboard commands, including the use of Up, Down, Home and End keys, as well as the mouse wheel moving up and down the list one element at a time.

Double clicking a Step or Layer in the list view will now open the Edit Process Step or Add/Edit Layer dialog.

As a precaution against a catastrophic failure during the file write operation, a temporary file is initially written, and only after it has been verified will the previous process model be overwritten. In the rare occasion of such a failure, only the temporary file will be lost, and the original, pre-save process model will remain intact.

A new Help menu option, Context Help, provides the same ability to display context help for a given panel or dialog, as pressing SHIFT+F1.