As Asylum Models' existing off-line programming system began to creak under the demands of making the Body Zone's animated heart and brain for the 'Millennium Experience', it went for Edgecam.

When Millennium Dome animated models maker, Asylum Models, ordered the EdgeCAM off-line 3-D programming system from Pathtrace of Reading, it knew exactly what it was expecting. Prior to joining the north London special effects model maker, Jason Szukalski had spent 18 months at two previous companies selecting and using, in his view, the best 3-D programming system for CNC machines to produce architectural and engineering models. As Asylum's existing off-line programming system began to creak under the demands of making the Body Zone's animated heart and brain for the 'Millennium Experience', Jason Szukalski was ready to order EdgeCAM.

'Our old system was seriously lacking in 3-D capability and we knew already how EdgeCAM was ideal for what we needed to do in the future,' he says.

At the company, EdgeCAM is linked to a 3-axis flat bed router originally intended for machining wood.

But thanks to a bolt-on lubrication system, it is now just as capable of routing aluminium and brass.

Amongst Asylum's credible list of achievements is the animated '2' figures used by BBC2 TV and the company is currently working on replica Enigma decoding machines for a forthcoming film.

As Jason Szukalski says: 'We will be programming all our model making on EdgeCAM now in order to produce even better special effects and keep our name in the forefront of this business.'