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13 March 2014

New developments for ipLaser

ipLaser is an online service that creates and manages consistent and repeatable laser cutting quotes from CAD files, and has been around for a number of years. At MACH 2012 the ipLaser stand was very busy demonstrating it’s on-line capabilities, and ipLaser is now found in job shops across the country, which is why it’s exciting that they’re returning to MACH in 2014, with a new range of features that take laser quoting to a new level.

After listening to managers, estimators, operators and customers, the new ipLaser range tackles the most common and frustrating aspects of quoting.

ipShapeMate is a tool that allows customers and estimators to create a part based on a parametric pattern from a library. Not only does the easy-to-use tool create a profile for quoting, but also generates a production ready CAD file.

ipDrawingDoctor is a tool to tackle the issue of problematic CAD files. The new feature identifies and repairs many of the typical issues that stop a drawing being processed by production and CAM systems.

The most exciting addition to ipLaser that will premiere at MACH 2014 addresses the perennial desire of customers to estimate a part price without a digital drawing. Traditional methods, such as estimating cut time, cut distance or using primitive shapes lists, have provided reasonable estimates of cutting time, but have been poor at estimating material consumption.
As the material component of total price has been increasing over time, often now in excess of 60% of the part price, the ability of job shops to estimate the material component of the price is critical to the success of the quoting process.

So the problem is, how do you make a good estimate of material consumption without a digital drawing? ipEstimate is the new ipLaser tool that includes a very simple sketching tool to approximate the outer profile of a part. This sketching tool uses a simple approach where the user is asked to quickly sketch a path that approximates the part in question. When complete, this sketch is submitted to our proven nesting algorithm that provides a near instant material consumption for the calculation of the part price. This combination will provide the most accurate, and realistic part price estimate possible without having a digital drawing available.

Visit the ipLaser team at stand 4348 at MACH 2014


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