"CMM manufacturers spend much of their development time and money creating better machines. CMM manufacturers see the creation of software program and drive their machines as necessary, but it is not their primary focus.
Programming a CMM using only the software supplied by the manufacturer is far more tedious and time consuming than programming a CNC with any of the current CAM packages. In fact, it frequently is similar to programming a CNC machine by writing one line of G-code at a time.
In response to the need for a better, easier way to develop programs for CMMs, several software development companies have created packages that attempt to bring the user-friendly, feature rich qualities of a CMM package to the task of programming CMMs."
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