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After 8 years of using Surfcam, I moved on to another place. They purchased HSMWorks and no one uses it here. I've spent the last few months learning it and it isn't too bad to use on the mill side of things. The lathe side needs a lot of love. Tool path control is lacking, post processor support is so so. I think this is a software that still needs time to mature. I like it, I just don't love it.
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I think HSM is the best thing out there for 3axis. I have had a seat of CAMWorks for SE and HSM at the same time (ST8 CW4SE and Inventor HSM 2016) and was able to directly compare Volumill to Adaptive in HSM and Adaptive won every time. Volumill is the program that evolved from Surfcam's Truemill.
I can't speak from personal experience on multi axis though I understand from comments that it has some shortcomings. Oh, you can undo all day long with HSM which ought to bring a grin to any Surfcam veterans face.
On posts if you don't like the provided ones you can easily get one modified for you and this does not cost you extra dollars.
Curious to know what controls you are missing?
Lathe is not good at all and they have been promising to fix it for some time now. HSM will save you time and money for 3D and under milling but lathe and mill turn are inadequate. I can't for example use a grooving tool for profiling which since so many grooving tools are made to do both just boggles my mind. After some time they have indicated recently they are finally serious about fixing lathe but we shall see. Something which applies to all programs is buy what is there right now and never buy on the promise of good things to come.
Very big drawback that began as of Feb 1st is you can no longer purchase permanent seats of Inventor HSM which was one of the true bargains out there and I would not unless I absolutely had to ever go subscription only. I have a permanent seat so I avoided this but new customers can't. I am not sure how it works with HSMWorks customers.
It's a great software, I think it was designed primarily for people who design more than machine. So far my reseller support has basically told me this is what we have for a mill/turn post. I finally asked to have one built. I know that is a difficult process and takes time. I got the pp back and it was very close. I still can't control the way my tool path will run on the lathe side of things. This is the works version. Sounds like you can control it on the inventor side and even in 360, which infuriates me.
I've made the switch to Esprit to work with my live tool lathes and I will probably just use it form my mills as well.
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HSMworks is by far the easiest of the CAM plug ins I have used. It is very powerful but is indeed missing small controls that do make it difficult in certain situations.
Sorting geometry has very few options other than "preserve order."
The point contact boundaries don't work consistently. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't
They did not put too much effort in to sheet bodies. I use sheet bodies all the time for clean up operations and you play "box of chocolates" when you work with sheet bodies.
The ""Entry POint' option has no effect on most of the 3D toolpaths.
It will not blend flow operations across multiple surfaces all the time.
I have my list and I'm getting ready to send it in.
That being said it is very easy to use inside of solidworks and I'm phasing out solidworks for Fusion 360 as it does most everything I need for my shop but the Fusion version of HSMworks lacks even more than HSMworks for SW. When I need more precise controls for my CNC programming I go back to ZW3D.