Exapt Picks Moduleworks As CAM Components Partner

Moduleworks has confirmed its partnership with Exapt to provide CAM toolpath and simulation components for the Exapt product range. Exapt provides a range of CAM solutions, from lathe to full five-axis simultaneous milling. Initially, Exapt selected Moduleworks for five-axis machining capability but has since partnered with Moduleworks for three-axis and simulation technologies. In 2005, Exapt recognised the growing demand for five-axis simultaneous machining.

At the time, it had a full development schedule enhancing the other areas of its product and was wary of diverting resource into what could be a long and expensive development project. The company was also concerned about time to market and therefore elected to look for a technical partner. After evaluating the market, Exapt selected the Moduleworks five-axis machining component. The five-axis product was launched in 2007 and initial reaction to the product was positive.

Since then, Exapt has worked with Moduleworks to enhance the product with new five-axis capability added at each release. Following on from the five-axis integration, Exapt began to look at other component opportunities and elected to be an early adopter for the three-axis Mesh machining component, which was under development from mid-2007. Exapt was keen to bolster its 3D machining capability and provide increased flexibility and performance to its customer base.

As the three-axis component developed, Exapt and Moduleworks worked together to integrate prototype components and address specific requirements of Exapt customers. The first Exapt release containing the three-axis component took place in mid-2009. Exapt has now begun work with a third Moduleworks component - simulation.

Wonderware Names Longwatch As Software Partner

Wonderware has named Longwatch, a supplier of video monitoring hardware and software products, as a certified software provider. Wonderware software partner products are endorsed or certified by Wonderware to be applications with proven compatibility with Wonderware software. Certified software partners have access to Wonderware Beta programs, toolkits and senior technical support so they can integrate and extend Wonderware software on an ongoing basis.

The Longwatch video surveillance system has been integrated with Wonderware's Intouch HMI, Active Factory, Historian and MES software in several applications. The combination of Wonderware software and Longwatch video systems allows operators in process control applications to see live and archived video from the plant floor directly on their Wonderware HMI screens. This allows operators to 'see' what is going on in a process plant or factory without having to send someone to the scene. The operator can also 'rewind' the video to see what happened a few seconds or a few hours before an incident.

By integrating with the Wonderware Activefactory trend chart object, Longwatch Video Historian software simultaneously shows trend graphs of user-selected variables (displayed as colour 'pen' lines) with archived video. The video panel and trend chart can be 'linked' (synchronised) with the click of a button on the viewer display. When the user clicks and drags the chart object's time cursor (normally used only for displaying the process variable's engineering units value and status at a selected point in time), the Video Historian also moves the video forward or backward accordingly.