Skip to main content
Log in

Tool path generation by offsetting curves on polyhedral surfaces based on mesh flattening

  • ORIGINAL ARTICLE
  • Published:
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Polyhedral surfaces are used as representation model for CAM and process planning purposes because of its simplicity for data exchange and geometric computation. However, there are few tool path planning strategies for such surfaces but isoplanar method. This paper presents a contour offset approach to tool path generation for three-axis ball-end milling of polyhedral surfaces, based on a novel method for offsetting curves on polyhedral surfaces. One of its salient features is to reduce the task of removing complex interfering of offsets from 3D physical surfaces to 2D plane by flattening mesh surfaces and avoid costly 3D Boolean set operations and relatively expensive distance calculation. Moreover, in practical implement, the procedures of calculating offset points and removing interfering loops are merged and carried out simultaneously results in an efficient tool path generation method. Empirical examples illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Kim HC, Yang MY (2008) Incomplete mesh-based tool path generation for optimum zigzag milling. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 35(7–8):803–813

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kiswanto G, Lauwers B, Kruth JP (2007) Gouging elimination through tool lifting in tool path generation for five-axis milling based on faceted models. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 32(3–4):93–309

    Google Scholar 

  3. Gray PJ, Bedi S, Ismail F (2005) Arc-intersect method for 5-axis tool positioning. Comput Aided Des 37(7):663–674

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lu JW (2007) Tessellated surface machining. Ph.D. thesis, Brigham Young University

  5. Chen T, Shi ZL (2008) A tool path generation strategy for three-axis ball-end milling of free-form surfaces. J Mater Process Technol 208(1–3):259–263

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Jun CS, Kim DS, Park S (2002) A new curve-based approach to polyhedral machining. Comput Aided Des 4(34):379–389

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Lauwers B, Kiswanto G, Kruth JP (2003) Development of a five-axis milling tool path generation algorithm based on faceted models. CIRP Ann Manuf Technol 52(1):85–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Xu XJ, Bradley C, Zhang YF, LoH HT, Wong YS (2002) Tool-path generation for five-axis machining of free-form surfaces based on accessibility analysis. Int J Prod Res 40(14):3253–3274

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Park SC (2004) Sculptured surface machining using triangular mesh slicing. Comput Aided Des 36(3):279–288

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kim SJ, Yang MY (2005) Triangular mesh offset for generalized cutter. Comput Aided Des 37(10):999–1014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Kim SJ, Yang MY (2007) Incomplete mesh offset for NC machining. J Mater Process Technol 194(1–3):110–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Lu JW, Cheatham R, Jensen CG, Chen Y, Bowan B (2008) A three-dimensional configuration-space method for 5-axis tessellated surface machining. Int J Comput Integr Manuf 21(5):550–568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. OuYang DH, Feng HY (2008) Machining triangular mesh surfaces via mesh offset based tool paths. Comput Aided Des Appl 5(1–4):254–265

    Google Scholar 

  14. Park SC, Chang M (2010) Tool path generation for a surface model with defects. Comput Ind 61(1):75–82

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Sun YW, Guo DM, Jia ZY (2006) Spiral cutting operation strategy for machining of sculptured surfaces by conformal map approach. J Mater Process Technol 180(1–3):74–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Li W, Yin Z, Huang Y, Xiong Y (2010) Tool-path generation based on angle-based flattening. Proc IMechE Part B: J Eng Manuf 224(10):1503–1509

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Kim SJ, Yang MY (2006) A CL surface deformation approach for constant scallop height tool path generation from triangular mesh. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 28(3–4):314–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Lee SG, Kim HC, Yang MY (2008) Mesh-based tool path generation for constant scallop-height machining. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 37(1–2):15–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Piegl LA, Tiller W (1999) Computing offsets of NURBS curves and surfaces. Comput Aided Des 31(3):147–156

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. Tam HY, Law HW, Xu HY (2004) A geometric approach to the offsetting of profiles on three-dimensional surfaces. Comput Aided Des 36(10):887–902

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Cao LX, Liu J (2008) Computation of medial axis and offset curves of curved boundaries in planar domain. Comput Aided Des 40(4):465–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Piegl LA, Riechard AM (1995) Tessellating trimmed NURBS surfaces. Comput Aided Des 27(1):16–26

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Dey TK, Goswami S (2003) Tight cocone: a water-tight surface reconstructor. Proc 8th ACM Symp Solid Model Appl, pp 127–134

  24. Razdan A, Bae MS (2005) Curvature estimation scheme for triangle meshes using biquadratic Bézier patches. Comput Aided Des 37(14):1481–1491

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Magid E, Soldea O, Rivlin E (2007) A comparison of Gaussian and mean curvature estimation methods on triangular meshes of range image data. Comput Vis Image Underst 107(3):139–159

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Gu X (2002) Parameterization for surfaces with arbitrary topologies. Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge

  27. Choi BK, Park SC (1999) A pair-wise offset algorithm for 2D point-sequence curve. Comput Aided Des 31(12):735–745

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuwen Sun.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Xu, J., Sun, Y. & Wang, S. Tool path generation by offsetting curves on polyhedral surfaces based on mesh flattening. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 64, 1201–1212 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-012-4075-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-012-4075-6

Keywords

Navigation