CabinetVision and Mastercam

Using these systems for kitchen cabinet design and construction. March 23, 2002

Question
Does anyone run both CabinetVision and MasterCAM and what do you think of them? Also, does CabinetVision not have an internal CAM engine so I would not have to export to generate my code? I will be using these systems for kitchen cabinet design and construction.

Forum Responses
If you purchase CabinetVision SolidPro, you don't need anything else. SolidPro uses the AlphaCAM engine for the CAM and has nesting.

If you purchase the regular CabinetVision product, you'll need CAM software and the link between CabinetVision and that CAM software. AlphaCAM does this with a product called NBM-NC. NBM-NC will take a parts list generated by CabinetVision and process for nesting and the output of NC Code. You'll need to properly set up CabinetVision's layers for use with NBM for the process to work right.

Mastercam is an excellent product and its new Router Module is very impressive. It still has a way to go, however, as it needs to be able to easily link to products like CabinetVision for process automation. Presently it isn't capable of this kind of automation without a C-Language programmer to create a custom C-Hook. I understand that Mastercam will have VBA in the near future. This level of automation will be much easier to achieve when it has VBA integrated.

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I have been using Mastercam's new router software for the things that my AutoCad/RouterCim software can't do easily or do at all. I am very impressed by Mastercam's software. I do caution, though, that there is a steep learning curve, but I can definitely see that it is worth the time investment for the results that are achievable.

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The comments below were added after this Forum discussion was archived as a Knowledge Base article (add your comment).

Comment from contributor R:
I've been using CabinetVision Solid Manufacturing for about 5 years and consider it the best program out there for a cabinet factory. If you are a custom shop that relies on shop drawings and your customers make changes mid-stream, you might want to consider AutoCad 2006 full blown version. As with all Cad/Cam programs, of which CabinetVision is one, the Cad end is wowfully lacking in comparison to a pure Cad program.