VUE 2026: Stoneswood Pushes Vericut Beyond Collision Checking Into Interpolation Turning

The Vericut Users' Exchange (VUE) returned to the UK in September 2026, drawing around 60 attendees to the Silverstone Museum, adjacent to the Silverstone Formula 1 Circuit. The day combined technical sessions on the latest Vericut releases with a keynote case study from Stoneswood Precision Components — a Cheshire-based manufacturer, part of Hyde Aero Products — demonstrating how far simulation-driven workflows can be pushed beyond conventional verification.

What's new in Vericut

Gavin Powell, Managing Director of Vericut UK, welcomed delegates before Gavin Bridger, Applications Engineering Manager, opened the technical programme with an interactive session on Vericut 9.6, Vericut 9.7 and beyond. Attendees voted on whether presented capabilities were current features, future developments or fiction — and many were surprised to learn that Vericut Assistant and bidirectional connectivity with Siemens' Run MyVirtual Machine (RMVM) digital-twin platform are already available.

After lunch, Bridger demonstrated the latest Icam Post release, which includes AI-powered assistance, regression testing and enhanced debugging tools for post-processor development and validation.

Verification that starts with the set-up sheet

The keynote came from Tom Whitbread, Technical Engineer at Stoneswood Precision Components. The company's workflow starts in hyperMILL CAM software, with Icam providing post-processing before Vericut independently verifies the resulting NC code.

"We want to show how we're using Vericut for more than simply checking whether a toolpath is going to collide."

Stoneswood builds its Vericut sessions using the same documentation issued to shop-floor operators, meaning fixture selection, work offsets, tooling assemblies and machine configuration are all checked against the set-up sheet. Any discrepancy between the documented set-up and the Vericut session can be investigated before the job reaches the machine. The company also feeds Vericut's cycle-time estimates back to its planning department to inform production scheduling and machine capacity decisions.

Using Icam for bespoke post-processing, Stoneswood controls specific C-axis table orientations to reposition components and access areas that would otherwise exceed the machine envelope. Whitbread cited a component approximately 2.3 m long machined within a working envelope of around 1.6 m — verified in simulation before cutting.

When a mill becomes a lathe

The most striking example was interpolation turning on the company's DMGMORI DMC series machining centres, which enables the production of turned features through coordinated machine movement rather than transferring the part to a conventional lathe.

"It's one thing to know that the machine can perform a particular function. It's another to make sure we can program it, post-process it and independently verify what the machine's going to do before we press start."

Stoneswood used hyperMILL's general turning functionality to create the toolpaths, then developed bespoke post-processing logic in Icam to translate the output and utilise DMGMORI's CYCLE806 functionality. The Vericut environment was developed to interpret the posted code and accurately reproduce the interpolation turning process on both machine configurations — mirroring the same controlled digital workflow used for conventional machining.

"That's the real outcome for us. We haven't just made interpolation turning possible on the machine; we've brought it into a process where we can understand and prove the behaviour before manufacturing begins."

Vericut, the CGTech product line established in 1988, specialises in NC/CNC simulation, verification, optimisation, post-processing and analysis software, and is used by companies of different sizes across all industries. For the VUE 2026 audience, the Stoneswood case study made the practical argument plainly: simulation value extends well past collision detection into planning, tooling and process development.