|
Prospector™ Features
Prospector™ Easily Handles the Most Complex Designs
Let’s face it... product designs are only going to continue to get more complex. This puts a serious strain on CAM systems to cope with the volume and complexity of the data sets thrown at them. You have to have a system you can count on regardless of how difficult, complex or ill defined data may be. That's where Prospector™ shines. Whether you design using solids or surfaces, Prospector can handle it. Just bring it!
Powered by Parasolid
 Prospector is fully integrated with the Parasolid® solid modeling technology. The Parasolid modeling kernel powers many popular solid modeling design systems. Recognized as the world's leading, production-proven core solid modeler, Parasolid powers many of the world's leading CAD systems including Unigraphics®, SolidWorks® and Solid Edge®. This means that you can machine directly from solid models from any Parasolid-based CAD system. Key benefits of this integration are:
- No Data Translation
You know how time consuming and frustrating it can be for some CAD systems to write an IGES data file suitable for machining. Some CAD vendors offer IGES translators as an expensive option or do not even offer an IGES option at all. Exporting data from a Parasolid-based CAD system means that the data never leaves the native Parasolid format so a translator is not required. This eliminates an entire step — the data translation step — from your process.
- 100% Accurate
All Parasolid-based CAD systems store math data in memory using the Parasolid solid modeling technology. Therefore the exchange of data between the CAD system and Prospector can not possibly cause geometry to be misinterpreted, distorted or lost because the same Parasolid software that created the CAD data is receiving it in Prospector.
- Fast
It is not unusual for some CAD systems to to take several hours to translate a single design to IGES. If there’s an error during the translation or a problem importing the data into Prospector, the entire process must be repeated. You can't afford these types of delays. Exporting Parasolid data directly to Prospector is not only 100% accurate but it's also fast. Very fast. NC programming can begin in just minutes as opposed to possibly hours and hours of frustrating data translation.
 Multi-Surface Machining You Can Count On
You can't machine the job if you can't read the data. Are you frustrated with your current system's ability to read IGES files? Is the part data translated incorrectly or not at all? After translation, is data missing? Is translation taking just too long? All these problems can cause serious delays in schedules and machine down-time. No shop can afford that anymore.
Prospector easily imports the most complex data sets in IGES or VDA format. By leveraging the superior data translation technology of ToolDesigner™, Prospector is equally adept at importing large and complex surface models.
 Importing IGES or VDA is fast. Very fast. Even the largest data files with literally hundreds and hundreds are of surfaces are no problem. The translator automatically adapts itself to process different "flavors" of IGES produced by various CAD systems. This means there are no confusing options or switches you have to remember to set depending on the sending CAD system.
Free Add-In to SolidWorks®
  To make it even easier to send data to the shop floor for programming, Prospector comes with a free add-in to SolidWorks. Directly from the SolidWorks user interface, you can create and update Prospector Projects. Simply select the component(s) of an assembly to machine and choose "Create Prospector Project" from the Prospector menu in SolidWorks. An easy to learn wizard guides you through the project creation process. Want to customize the add-in? No problem. The source code is absolutely free in the support section of the web site.
|
