Capabilities
STEP-NC can communicate a complete machining process description to a machine tool control or between manufacturing software applications. The information handled by STEP-NC can be divided into the following general categories. The standard handles technology-specific parameters for milling and turning, and extensions for other technologies under development (see Future Work).
- Product Description
- Workpiece, PDM and Product Geometry
- Manufacturing Features
- Dimensions and Tolerances
- Measures and Part Properties
- General Process Description
- Project
- Executable
- Operation
- Toolpath
- Technology-Specific Process Description
- Operations and cutting tools for milling
- Operations and cutting tools for turning
- Operations and devices for inspection
STEP-NC can exchange the explicit toolpath descriptions in use today, and add part, stock, and fixture geometry, a description of the tools, geometric dimensions and tolerances, and PDM information. A STEP-NC file is difficult to edit by hand because it contains geometry descriptions but for large programs the file size can be smaller because STEP-NC uses a compressed XML format instead of ASCII codes.
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