Build custom machine tools fast.
An Open Source Middleware Framework to integrate CAD/CAM software with machine hardware systems into a production-ready, complete and cohesive closed loop system, that can produce high quality products out of the box.
Originally developed for laser-based Additive Manufacturing processes, its generic principles remove development barriers for a multitude of machine tool verticals - saving implementers millions of dollars in R&D costs.
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Maximum Flexibility.
With an extensive plugin mechanism at its core, the framework allows the plug and play combination of many commercial off-the-shelf components.
Making complete machine tools has never been easier!
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Full feature set from day one.
For special machinery builders, a focus on differentiating features is the central necessity. But table-stakes are often out of scope in a project.
Ship a complete product with the first release!
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Closed loop application stack.
The framework architecture allows an easy integration of feedback loops, either offline or inside the process, layer by layer or real-time.
A real manufacturing process is never linear!
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Unbelievable productivity boost.
Building on a rich codebase takes care of many small decisions and saves any implementer dozens of developer years in duplicate effort.
Go to market faster!
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Open licensing model.
The framework is open source and based on a decade of work done by the 3MF Consortium under the Linux Foundation.
Own your code and avoid vendor lock-ins.
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Integrator stays in full control.
A liberal licensing scheme protects the implementer's process IP. Proprietary derivatives are explicitely encouraged.
Your Intellectual Property always stays yours.
Case Studies
SCANLAB Technology Demonstrator
SCANLAB is a leading supplier of components for laser beam deflection. Its demonstrator showcases the next leap of industrial laser-based Additive Manufacturing equipment.
ETH Zurich - RAPTURE
The ETH Zurich's Advanced Manufacturing Lab built a novel multi-material LPBF system with rotating recoater and continuous laser processing. A machine tailored for rocket applications.
TUM - Hybrid Polymer Machine
The Chair of Additive Manufacturing at the Technical University of Munich developed a novel polymer system that combines InkJet technology with Selective Laser Sintering to create multi-material properties in a single component.
iwb - ReAM 250
The Institute for Machine Tools and Production Management (iwb) developed a complete Open Source System, including CAD Drawings, PLC Software and Machine Control Software.
Aalen University - Research Machine
The Laser Application Center at the Aalen University built a research machine that pushes the frontier of what is possible with LPBF process monitoring and closed loop control.
BIAS - RegelMap
The Bremen Institute for Applied Beam Technology developed a novel inter-layer control loop that significantly improves the thermal management of Metal LPBF processes.
ADIRA AddCreative
Acquired by Nikon SLM Solutions, ADIRA's moving source multi-laser system extends the reach of Metal Additive Manufacturing into huge build volumes of arbitrary sizes.
Schaeffler OmniFusion
Schaeffler Special Machinery developed a state-of-the-art multi material, multi laser, multi beam shape Metal Additive Manufacturing system with open parameters.
Evobeam
With a background in electron beam welding and vacuum machines, Evobeam's SLAvam 300 system ventures into Powder Bed Fusion, and offers high temperature processes up to 1000° degree C in a vacuum atmosphere.
Integration into Autodesk Fusion
Tightest Integration between CAD, CAM and Machine!
With the closest integration of upstream CAD/CAM software possible, metadata can seamlessly flow from the CAD system through the hatching steps directly to the components of the machine control software. Development timelines shrink from months or even years to days.
Industry-leading Toolpathing Kernels!
Fusion's Advanced Toolpathing kernels leapfrog the state of the industry and allow an easy to modify adoption of any process parameter to the microsecond level. Driving advanced industries like Space or Medical for decades, Fusion offers a direct commercialization platform for any process developer's IP.
Fusion is great for the mechanical design alone!
Independent of the control software, Fusion itself is a fantastic platform to develop the mechanical systems of any machine tool. The integrated FEA, Manufacturing and Electronic workspaces allow any engineering team to efficiently Design and Make their hardware.
Features
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Modern Client-Server Architecture
All functionality runs headless on a server inside of the machine tool. Clients communicate with standard REST protocols, documented with OpenAPI 3.0.
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API First System Design
The system is built on its own public facing REST APIs. The eat-your-dogfood approach allows the transparent integration of all machine functionality into larger systems (like an MES) with ease.
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Configurable User Interface Widgets
The framework comes with a widget-based user interface system, which can be set up from the backend. No web development experience is required.
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Multi-Platform
Everything is built to compile and run on Windows, Linux, MacOS X and ARM platforms.
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Multi-User
Being Login and permission-driven, user roles define the capabilities and there is a record who did what when on the machine tool.
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Multi-Language
An internationalization module allows the adaptation of the User Interface into multiple regions and languages.
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State-of-the-art Plugin mechanism, Stable APIs and Stable ABIs.
Using a modern component toolkit from Autodesk, custom code is easily combined with the Framework. Stable interfaces (binary and semantic) make the development sustainable over many years and versions.
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Separation of Framework and Machine Specialization
A clean separation of generic functionality from the specifics of the machine tool allow huge portions of the code to be reusable across domains. The custom machine code often stays at a few hundred lines.
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Separation of Core Development from Developer Experience
With separated release cycles, the large core framework can be precompiled and referenced from a small machine-specific repository as third party.
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Consistent use of a Database backend
Every build information, log message or user setting is consistently stored in a light-weight SQLite database. All data is extractable via public API. No directories with random CSV or CLI files are created.
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Data Migration and Backward Compatibility
The database structure can evolve and migrate with system updates. Machine data and settings are not lost but can continuously be accessed from newer versions.
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Data Interfaces and Forward Compatibility.
A stable data interface layer makes older versions compatible with new database schemes. This allows the possibility to temporarily downgrade releases or even run multiple development branches on the same machine.
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Built-in concurrency and signal handling.
A key element for a responsive and stable machine workflow is the integration of concurrent subsystems into a whole. A staged and recorded signalling system make this easy.
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Alert System and Error Propagation
Errors and warnings in subsystems are propagated with best practices throughout the architectural layers - and either mitigated or acknowledged by the user.
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Advanced Logging and Journaling concepts
Every state and variable change in the machine execution is logged and recorded in a data lake with microsecond accuracy and with its concurrency context - replay any job in retrospective and detect anomalies quickly.
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Visual Finite State Machine flow design.
With a strict finite state machine concept, the general machine architecture is granularly visualizable - which is a great discussion point with mechanical engineers who do not have an extensive software development background.
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Charts, Toolpath viewers, Point cloud inspectors.
The User Interface system provides widgets to directly analyse aggregated machine data by the operator on the machine or from remote access. Big data is granularly accessible without downloading gigabytes of CSV files or minutes of access time.
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3MF Toolpath and Metadata management
The Machine Control Framework is based on the 3MF Toolpath extension, allowing to granularly attach meta information to any aspect of the process: Build-level, Part-level, Style-level, Hatch-level, Subhatch-level. The data handling easily scales into Gigabytes of build data that run for weeks uninterrupted.
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Extensible Driver Ecosystem
By wrapping proprietary vendor SDKs into driver plugins, the deployment and use of commercial hardware is streamlined and straightforward. The integrated resource management even allows to switch between various versions of an SDK, depending on use case and machine.
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Downstream firmware deployment
If a hardware component permits it, all the downstream firmware and realtime software is patched and updated from the framework itself. This allows up- and downgrades of software versions and makes sure a deployed system is in a well-defined state.
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Over the air updates
The system is made for rolling out updates over the cloud and synchronize new versions to a central repository - including firmware and downstream hardware.
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Package management, CI/CD and proper build pipelines
Developed with git in mind, the framework allows modern CI/CD integration, deployment over package management tools and custom build pipelines.
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Lowest possible dependencies
Building upon plain C++, the amount of system dependencies are minimal and allow the deployment on any system from Business Laptop to Raspberry Pi. No more runtime environment mismatches or gigabytes of dependency hell for a development environment.
Start Development within five minutes
Download the source code from Github, run build_clean_win64.bat, and make your first machine control software within a few days.
Your Windows development environment should host Visual Studio, CMake, Go and git.
If you are considering to use the software in your commercial or academic machine project, the maintainers are happy to meet and advise you in person. Connect with us at amcf@autodesk.com.
Community and Contributors
Alexander Oster
Autodesk
Sebastian Aagaard
Aagaard AM
Craig Sturgess
Added Scientific
Yury Rodzikau
SCANLAB