Autodesk® Inventor CAM™ 2021.1

Release Notes

Build 8.1.0.21775 / 1 July 2020
Autodesk, Inc.

This document covers both Inventor CAM products:

Inventor CAM Premium
Inventor CAM Ultimate

What’s New
System Requirements
Installation

WHAT’S NEW

The following changes have been made in the current update (2021.1):

General Changes

Improve the performance of sketch editing when the Inventor CAM addin is loaded. (#21144)
Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to generate toolpaths from the root browser node. (#21547)
Fixed an issue in which previously installed posts could be removed during installation of an update. (#22792)
Fixed a crash that could occur during startup or loading Inventor CAM if an invalid saved template was present. (#21693)

Changes for Setups

Fixed an issue in which an "Unspecified error….." message appeared when attempting to create a Setup. (#14864)
Fixed an issue in which it was not possible to remove or re-select the machine configuration from the setup. (#21616, #21513)
Fixed an issue in which Chuck Front was not appearing as an option for the origin in a turning setup. (#21645)

Changes for Turning

Fixed an issue with certain turn profile roughing toolpaths that were rapiding into the stock before a cut. (#19873)
Fixed a problem with turning profile roughing operations with retraction strategy set to maximum retraction where the tool was retracting to an unknown X coordinate. (#19443)
Fixed an issue with certain profile roughing toolpaths that were gouging the part while retracting. (#19799)
Fixed a problem with turn profile finishing with multiple stepovers where the first stepover was not machining all the material it should. (#19700)
Fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing toolpaths that were taking too long to generate. (#20081)
Fixed a toolpath generation issue for certain turning rough profiling toolpaths. (#21349)
Fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing toolpaths that were not cutting material up to the stock back Z limit. (#20787)
Fixed an issue with certain profile roughing and finishing toolpaths that were not generating if the turning profile ended in an arc at the back. (#20932)
Fixed a problem with generating toolpath for certain turning profile finishing toolpaths with compensation type set to in control. (#21262)
Fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing toolpaths where they were either giving an error while generation or gouging the model. (#21546, #20805)
Fixed an issue for certain turning profile roughing where the toolpath gouged the model if it went beyond the back of the model. (#21498)
Fixed an issue with turning profile finishing where the toolpath gouged while returning for spring and multiple finishing passes. (#21346)
Fixed an issue with certain turn rough profiling toolpaths that were not leaving enough clearance on material during a transverse rapid move. (#20731)
Fixed an issue with certain turn profile roughing toolpaths not being generated when machined with a face neutral tool. (#19628)
Fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing and profile finishing toolpaths that gave an error during generation. (#19801)
fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing toolpaths with unequal X and Z finish allowances not generating correctly. (#20502)
Fixed an issue for certain turning profile roughing toolpaths with grooving set to dont allow grooving that were generating an incorrectly inclined toolpath for a horizontal section of the part. (#18898)
Added the ability to reduce the spindle speed at a certain radius for a turning part-off operation. (#9881)
Improved the X and Z clearance functionality for turning profile roughing. This project aimed to remove annoying error messages and handle corrections internally and also disallow users from setting either clearance to 0 since it might create situations where the tool might rapid into material. (#19641)
Fixed an issue with certain turning profile roughing toolpaths with turning tools using round inserts that were not machining a groove. (#19779)
Fixed an issue with turning grooving operations where the "Repeat Finishing Pass" parameter was only visible when roughing was enabled. (#19636)
Fixed a problem with turn profile finishing where the toolpath was gouging into the model when there was a front tangential extension defined. (#19060)
Fixed an issue with certain profile finishing toolpaths with tangential extensions not being generated. (#22253)

Changes for Milling

Fixed an issue with lead-out gouging on a Flow operation in certain conditions. (#19918)
When ordering "Outside to In" was selected in a Morphed Spiral operation, the resulting toolpath machined bottom to top as well as outside to in. This was corrected to that it will always machine top to bottom. (#17699)
Improve the computation of raster zigzag links for Parallel operations so they are less likely to be rejected for no obvious reason. (#21652)
Fixed an issue that caused a gouge in certain conditions when tangentially connecting linking moves for Contour operations. (#20316)
Fixed an issue with several operation types that could cause a crash when Avoid surfaces were provided which were below the minimum Z. (#22060)
Fixed an issue in which the Feed Height was incorrectly being raised when the vertical lead-in height was below the Feed Height on single pass contour operations ("Multiple Depths" and "Ramp" are disabled). (#19602)
Fixed an issue that could occur in linking moves for a Spiral operation. (#18702)
Fixed issue with certain characters not being cut with multiple depths in an Engrave operation. (#18006)
Fixed an issue in which Bore and Circular operations could gouge when using "In Control" compensation. (#20099)

Changes for Drilling

Restored the ability to use "Select Same Diameter" when using the "Selected Points" option in drilling operations. (#20802)
Fixed an incorrect toolpath computation for Thread Milling operations when using a straight lead-in (arc radius of 0). (#21494)

Changes for Pattern

Fixed a crash that could occur when creating a new component pattern if an assembly contains suppressed occurrences. (#21852)

Changes for Simulation

Fix several issues that could occur when using fast-3-axis stock simulation. (#22117)

The following changes were made in an earlier update (2021):

What's New

General

The HSMEditor has been updated to the latest version for the 2020 release. (CAM-12417)
Many icons in the user interface have been refreshed to improve constistency with Inventor. (CAM-11316)
CAM functions for 2D Profile are now enabled when the Flat Pattern environment is active in Inventor. (CAM-10631)
A warning is now issued if you edit a machine configuration that is being used in multiple setups, since the changes you make will affect all setups that reference the machine. (CAM-10281)

Post Processor

New functions 'section.getModelOrigin' and 'section.getModelPlane' were added to provide access to the work coordinate system of the CAD model. (CAM-12614)
A 'reset' parameter has been added to the createAxis function, which can reset the current rotary axis position to zero prior to scanning the section for the optimal rotary starting position. There are also corresponding 'axis.getReset' and 'axis.setReset' functions. (CAM-12300)
Post Processor: A new variable 'machineParameter.spindleSpeedDwell' has been added which specifies a dwell time in seconds when the spindle speed changes during a drilling cycle. This can be used to correct expanded gun-drilling cycles. (CAM-9495)

Fixes

General

Fixed an issue in which the stock contours preview was incorrect when another tool orientation was selected in the operation. (CAM-12649)
Fixed several issues in which toolpaths were not being invalidated when specific parameters were changed: Safe Z, Origin or Chuck Front in a turning setup, Entry and Pre-drill positions, Bottom Height 'from selected point'. (CAM-13938, CAM-13360, CAM-12632, CAM-13218, CAM-12991)
Avoid incorrect parenting of the Machine Select dialog, which could lead to a crash. (CAM-13443)

Toolpaths

When using a cutter with a corner radius in 2D Adaptive, the upper edge of a pocket could be gouged in some circumstances; this is corrected. (CAM-11596)
Allow machining two open bores within the same operation. (CAM-11647)
Fixed an issue where the software could hang when calculating helical ramps on a contour pass. (CAM-12129)
Fixed an issue in which toolpaths might not get created when using the "Fillet" option (Mac only). (CAM-12279)
Fixed an issue where faceting could occur in Scallop operations. (CAM-12326)
Fixed an issue in which helical links were detached from their cutting segment and a further lift and plunge was inserted in between to join them. (CAM-12364)
Jet will now provide the user with a better warning when no path can be computed. (CAM-12953)
Contour with Both Way and Roughing Passes used to produce partial toolpaths. This has now been fixed. (CAM-13309)
Fixed an issue in which entry positions were inadvertently removed from 2D Chamfer operations. (CAM-13676)
Fixed an issue which caused irregular cutting passes for the scallop strategy. (CAM-13757)
Fixed an issue where some arcs were misformed when offset. (CAM-13135)
Fixed an issue which could have caused gouges when smoothing for sampling strategies is enabled. (CAM-13266)
Fixed an issue in which a toolpath would not regenerated after smoothing was turned on or off. (CAM-12599)
Fixed an issue in which rapid retracts of undercutting tools could fail to report some collisions. (CAM-11401)

Turning

Fixed leads when "Use fixed lead direction" was turned off for certain inside and face grooving operations. (CAM-10679)
Use more accurate round shank holders (instead of square) for visualization and simulation of some turning tools. (CAM-11423)
Fixed issues with toolpath verification, simulation and NC code when an angled turning tool with compensation set to tip tangent was used for profiling, facing or chamfering. (CAM-11617)
Fixed an issue where the compensation point for a boring tool was incorrectly previewed in the tool library. (CAM-12236)
The non-functional 'Radial dimension mode' dropdown was removed from the turning / turn-mill setup dialog. (CAM-12448)
Fixed an issue in which the tangent compensation point for a turning tool was incorrect when changing the tool direction. (CAM-12856)

Post Processor

Fixed an issue in which "getOptimizedTCPMode" was returning an incorrect value. (CAM-11367)
A post processor error is no longer generated when a multi-axis operation has a constant tool axis of 0,0,1. (CAM-11794)
The post processor now considers a drilling operation to be an axial center drilling operation instead of a milling operation when it is within a tolerance of X=0, Y=0. (CAM-8185)
Fixed a problem in which linear values from the machine configuration dialog were not recalculated according to the output units. (CAM-11877)

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Autodesk Inventor CAM 2021 supports Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit.
Inventor CAM 2021 is compatible with the 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 versions of Inventor, Inventor Professional, and Inventor LT.

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INSTALLATION

New installation

Inventor must be installed prior to installing Inventor CAM
If you need to install Inventor, it should be available to you in the Autodesk Account Portal
Before you install Inventor CAM 2021, please make sure to run Windows Update, install all Windows Updates that are pending on your machine, and reboot:
- For Windows 10: Windows Update is available in the Update and Security section of Windows Settings, which is available from the Windows menu.
- Windows 7: Windows Update is located in the Control Panel, which is accessible from the Start menu.
It is sometimes necessary to perform a Windows Update multiple times to completely update your operating system.
Verify that enough disk space is available on your machine to install Inventor CAM 2021.
Before installing Inventor CAM 2021, please uninstall all prior Autodesk beta products.
Download Inventor CAM 2021 from the Autodesk Account Portal (preferred) or cam.autodesk.com.
Follow the instructions to download and launch the installer. Temporary extraction is to your temp folder. Operating system errors regarding very long path names can occur if the temporary location is nested too many levels deep.
If the installer does not launch, browse to the folder where the files were extracted, and double-click setup.exe.

Updating an existing installation

When a new update is available, an update notification will appear in the Autodesk Desktop App.
Please download and install the update package.

Before installing an update there is no need to uninstall a previous Inventor CAM release; but if you prefer to do so, you can uninstall the relevant release in Programs and Features in Windows Control Panel by accessing “View installed updates”.

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FEEDBACK

We encourage you to provide your feedback to us and help make Inventor CAM even better. If you encounter issues not covered in this document, please report them to Autodesk through your reseller, on the CAM discussion forum, or to the Inventor CAM team using 'Send Feedback' on the 'Help' menu.

The Autodesk CAM Team
For more information visit us at: http://cam.autodesk.com