Implementation of CAM System Integration Between STEP-NC and UG

The new ISO14649 standard (so called STEP-NC) is an extension of STEP in computer numerical controls(CNCs) manufacturing, machining operation and manufacturing features are organized into a series of working steps, and each working step that is a processing instruction can be executed in CNC machine tools. Based on the analysis of STEP-NC data model and file structure, this paper presents a method to implement the seamless integration between STEP-NC and UG CAM system. First, the relevant information from the STEP-NC file is extracted and stored in the part information database. Then a mapping mechanism is proposed to construct the transform of the two heterogeneous data. After that, machining data and parameters, such as geometry, technology, cutting tools and machining operations are mapped between STEP-NC and UG CAM according to the proposed mapping mechanism. Finally the system is implemented in UG NX 6.0 by using its APIs.