Plasma cutting and oxy-cutting software
Being well-known and very active in plate-working industries, starting with ship-building industry, Alma has a valuable experience in oxycutting and plasma cutting. Several innovating and inventive programming processes devised by Alma rely on these technologies, which includes: continuous cutting with no lead-outs, programming in “true” multi-torching, programming of scalable bevels, etc. From 2D cutting to 3D cutting and beveled cutting, several Alma’s software products support oxycutting and plasma cutting requirements.
The programming and nesting software for oxy-cutting and plasma cutting
Thanks to its ability to meet specific machine requirements, including heat constraints, involved in oxy-cutting and plasma cutting, act/cut is a powerful and flexible solution which efficiently combines automation and user interaction, when required.
Main advantages and benefits:
- High-performance automatic nesting (in terms of efficiency and calculation time) thanks to the availability of multiple nesting strategies
- Optimized multi-torch cutting control and ability to pilot machines equipped with programmable torches
- Optimized use of remnant sheets or off-cuts of any shape
- One click to perform the nesting, the tool path, and NC program generation
- Use of several methods to reduce the number of piercings on the sheet: continuous cutting (positive or negative bridges), chain cutting, common cut between two parts
- Efficient control of heat deformations
- Lead-ins/outs calculation to avoid burrs
- Ability to pilot programmable beveling heads.
More about act/cut advantages and benefits for oxycutting and plasma cutting >
Programming software for 5-axis cutting machines and cutting robots
Through a simple and intuitive user interface, act/cut 3d is dedicated to the programming of any type of 3D-cutting machines regardless the number of axes or the cutting technique used (laser, plasma, waterjet, or routing). Providing support for advanced manufacturing functions, act/cut 3d can meet any kind of requirements, including high-level manufacturing requirements for the cutting of complex parts.
Main advantages and benefits:
- Comprehensive modeling of the machine and its environment
- Reduction of programming cycle thanks to powerful functions automating the creation of cutting trajectories, the definition of lead-ins/lead-outs and the sequencing of cutting profiles
- Reduction of cycle times
- Automatic search for collision-free trajectories
- Realistic simulation of the cutting sequence and visualization of possible anomalies (speed, collisions, accessibility, job tolerance)
- Management of cutting parameters in database material/thickness
- Easy-to-learn and use: simplified control panel, easy object handling, clear and simple display of cell objects, cutting profiles, and programs using tree-views
- Extension to other technological processes such as laser welding and polishing.
Product overview
Based on an accurate 3D representation of the machine (including kinematics or axis limit elements) and its environment, act/cut 3d, thanks to automatic geometry analysis functions, can automatically define the cutting contours for CAD-imported parts.
Using a powerful algorithm that optimizes the paths while avoiding collisions, act/cut 3D generates the tool head trajectories. It also allows you to automatically model the tooling from the 3D model of the part to cut.
With act/cut 3d, you will easily create and validate NC programs thanks to realistic simulation and automatic control functions combined with display features for visualizing anomalies.
act/cut 3d is an autonomous programming software that can interact with machines and robots of any trademark and be used with complementary software products of act/ range:
- For the cutting of flat metal sheets by 5-axis machines, 2D programming modules are provided with act/cut 3d.
- For the cutting of tubes, act/tubes is available as an optional component and provides the required specific functions (modeling, nesting and programming).
A comprehensive CAD/CAM solution for the programming of tube-cutting machines and robots
act/tubes is a dedicated and comprehensive CAD/CAM solution that can control any type of tube-cutting machines and robots (2D machines with a rotative axis, 4-axis machines dedicated to tubes cutting, 5-axis machines with one or several rotative axes, robot cells aimed at cutting tubes) and manage all the steps of the tube-cutting process, from the tube modeling to the CNC program generation.
Main advantages and benefits:
- Comprehensive CAD/CAM solution for tube cutting operations, including upstream tube design and nesting operations
- A highly-automated job solution
- Ability to interact with any kind of tube-cutting systems
- Support of specific functions or requirements related to tube cutting machines (for example: automatic programming of loading/unloading peripheral units, coupling constraints for multiple-axis machines, etc.)
- Fully-integrated with act/ range solutions for the programming of 2D- and 3D-cutting machines
Product overview
act/tubes can control any kind of tube-cutting systems:
- 2D machines with a rotative axis,
- 4-axis machines dedicated to tubes cutting,
- 5-axis machines with one or several rotative axes,
- Robot cells aimed at cutting tubes.
act/tubes performs all the tasks involved in the tube-cutting process:
- Tubes modeling
- Launching order management
- Automatic nesting of tube sections to be cut
- Creation and sequencing of the cutting tasks and post-processing including the specific ISO code generation for the machine or robot used.
Given the high investments involved in the installation of tube-cutting machines, using a non-dedicated or very little automated system would significantly affect and decrease your productivity. Choosing act/tubes means benefiting from an efficient and evolutive solution, which has been successfully tried and tested by several manufacturers and today relies on several industrial partnerships.
