What is CAD/CAM? - Back to Basics?

By Rose Barfield 2 min January 27, 2021

What is CAD/CAM? What does it stand for? What is computer-aided manufacturing and what has it got to do with CAD software? Keep reading to find out.

What does CAD/CAM stand for?

CAD/CAM is a combination of two acronyms:

CAD

Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting

CAM

Computer-Aided Manufacturing or Computer-Aided Modeling or Computer-Aided Machining

The most common is Computer-Aided Manufacturing.

What is Computer-Aided Manufacturing?

Computer-Aided Manufacturing simply means any type of manufacturing that is created with the "aid" of a computer. This can be anything from the act of using a computer to control a machine that manufactures parts, to the use of a computer to assist in the management of a manufacturing plant.

CAM includes manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing (3D printing), laser cutting and computer numerical control (CNC) machining.

What is CADCAM- 3d printing

3D printing is a type of CAM

What is CAD/CAM?

CAD/CAM means literally: Computer-Aided Design & Computer-Aided Manufacturing. Both CAD and CAM are required to manufacture a part, it is unusual, although not impossible, to find one without the other. Generally, a part is first designed in a piece of CAD software and then sent to a CAM software package for manufacture.

What is CAM software?

CAM software is any software package that translates a CAD model into a language that the machine can understand. It tells the machine how to manufacture the part. Some software packages do both CAD and CAM.

More Back to Basics:

by Rose Barfield - CAD User Experience & Interface Design Specialist

Rose is responsible for taking user feedback and improving the BricsCAD product. Before coming to BricsCAD, she was a CAD user and worked in the Automotive, Aerospace, and Defense industries as a Technical Illustrator. She loves finding out how things work, taking them apart, and (hopefully) putting them back together again.