Furniture

 
 
The well proven three-dimensional and parametric software, designed by leading Italian software house BrainSoftware, speeds up and simplifies cabinet design and production.

As the software can be used with any make of CNC machining centre and provides enormous efficiency savings, it is becoming extremely popular with UK manufactures of cabinet-based products.

Handmade kitchen and furniture maker Mick Culshaw has bought a Level 2 CAD software package to speed up his design work.

Said Mr Culshaw, whose small business is based in Mawdesley near Ormskirk: "I plan to use it initially as a design package and then to move on to its CAM facilities in due course."

He opted for Space 3D because: “It’s the only CAD software package I know of that has a link to CNC operation.”

Daystyle, of Old Knebworth Hertfordshire, produces quality bespoke cabinets incorporating both contemporary and traditional designs. It has also bought the Level 2 software package for use with a new CNC machining centre.
Kerwood Ltd, of Tockwith, near York, has specified a Level 3 CAD/CAM package for use with its soon-to-arrive CNC machining centre, its first. The company specialises in producing bespoke kitchen and bedroom furniture.

Partner John Kirby said: “I chose Space 3D software because it has been developed to design and machine the kind of hand-built made parts we produce, such as kitchen doors within a frame.”

Level 1 of the Space 3D cabinet software contains features usually found only in more expensive panel software packages, creates straight cabinets in a few minutes using simple commands to produce a cutting list.

The Level 2 module incorporates the same features but also has a built-in library of 10,000 components and 70 door models. This allows around 1,000,000 different design combinations.

Said director David Day: “We have used a similar software package before but the results were not entirely satisfactory. After having the Space 3D system demonstrated I am totally confident it will do the job we want it to do.”

Designs can be changed by inserting or substituting different doors, handles, legs, hinges, drawer fronts and drawer guides. It also creates cabinet tops, shelves, skirting boards and frames, moulds the edges of panel tops and shelves and gives them a smooth finish.

With Level 2 the shape of a room – for example, a kitchen – can be drawn, complete with all the walls, and the cabinets placed in the exact spots they are to go. You can then obtain a 3D view of the room, which is useful for face-to-face meetings with customers.

Level 3 incorporates all the features found in Levels 1 and 2, as well as being able to deal with straight or curved furniture or curved rooms. It can develop complex cabinet designs, such as curved cabinets and those incorporating mosaics or marquetry.

It also provides high quality rendering, showing all of the items that make up the room in virtual reality. Level 4, as well as containing all the features found in Level 3, can estimate the materials used in one or more projects, produce orders for materials suppliers and a bill of materials, and manage standard or structured codification. It incorporates panel optimisation facilities.

Top-of-the-range Level 5 contains all the Level 4 features plus the ability to manage edge applications and provide production costs and reports together with warehouse management data. ‘Face Framing' is available with all levels.

To make the software even more productive, Level 1 can be supplied with full CAM capabilities plus the facility to produce barcode labels, as can Levels 2-5, which can also produce cutting lists.

Said a spokesman for Space 3D: “The easy-to-use software is available at different levels so that customers need only buy what they actually need. The time savings it provides are remarkable as there’s no setting or marking out needed and no template making, plus there’s total accuracy in the product being produced.