What Does it Mean? The Final Few Acronyms
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
While there are countless
scientific and engineering-related acronyms that are used in different
industries and a number of fields, there are a select few that pertain to precisely
what we do at Greenlight Optics. As you may have read the meaning behind other
acronyms since we began this series of posts in March, their time
has come to an end. These last choice acronyms relate directly to what our team
works on at Greenlight Optics, so they happen to be well known among our team.
·
CAD
In
order to design the various articles we create at Greenlight Optics, this
acronym is highly important. What’s so crucial about something that looks like
a person forget to spell the latter half of ‘caddie?’ In order to design and develop
the prototypes
of the systems we produce, we need this acronym — or should we be saying computer
system? CAD stands for computer-aided design and is none other than a computer
system used for designing. As straightforward as that is, this computer system
can do many things. CAD is used to create the design, modify it, analyze it, or
can even optimize it to operate, function, or just be better. Computer-aided design isn’t just used by us for diamond
turning, fabrication, CNC machining, or molding; it is used in several
industries that refer to this computer system by its acronym of CAD. They
include electronic systems (though, it tends to go by electronic design
automation or EDA in that industry), mechanical design automation, and technical
design. Among all of these industries, CAD can be used to design tools,
machinery, and to design and draft buildings for architectural and constructional
settings in order to offer multiple viewpoints and show the internal
organization of different layouts or setups.
·
CAM
Not
a shortened version of ‘camera,’ this acronym actually has something in common
with the other one we’ve elaborated on in this post. CAM technically isn’t a computer
system, but rather, it’s computer software that is also used during manufacturing process
to create articles and workpieces. Optical products and optical systems require
a great deal of technologies and machinery for design, development,
manufacturing, and operating. CAM helps with many of the applications we work
on at Greenlight Optics, particularly during the course of manufacturing. CAM
uses computer software to control machine tools and other machinery or
technology to not only speed up the manufacturing process, but also to make it
more efficient. Other added benefits of using computer-aided manufacturing for
optical systems means waste is minimized and so is energy consumption. How does
CAM relate to CAD? Well, after an optical product or optical system undergoes
computer-aided design, it subsequently goes through computer-aided
manufacturing. Oftentimes, many version of CAM software use a form of numerical control to manufacture a
product or a workpiece. While computer-aided manufacturing software has helped
further manufacturing within several industries, there is one thing it doesn’t
have: CAM software cannot reason like a human can, so it sometimes takes an
engineer or machinist writing down code or notes for manufacturing completion.
The definitions of what these
acronyms stand for and what they’re used for seem to give a direct answer of “what
do they mean,” don’t they? These two specific acronyms are computer-aided
systems/software that the Greenlight Optics team uses day-in and day-out when
working on optical systems.
To see all of our capabilities for
developing and manufacturing new optical products, click here.
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