Direct 5-axis tool-path generation from point cloud input using 3D biarc fitting

  • Authors:
  • K. L. Chui;W. K. Chiu;K. M. Yu

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China;Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China;Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

  • Venue:
  • Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
  • Year:
  • 2008

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In reverse engineering, geometrical information of a product is obtained directly from a physical shape by a digitizing device. To fabricate the product, manufacturing information (usually tool-path) must be generated from a CAD model. The data digitized must be processed and in most cases, a surface model is constructed from them using some of the surface fitting technologies. However, these technologies are usually complicated and the process for constructing a surface patch from a massive digitizing data is time-consuming. To simplify the process for getting tool-path information, a simple algorithm is proposed in this paper. The algorithm is used to generate a 5-axis machining tool-path. Instead of implementing any complicated surface fitting techniques, a direct method is proposed for constructing three-dimensional (3D) triangular mesh from the digitizing data with the mesh points considered as the tool contact locations. Depending on the locations of the points digitized, a decimation procedure is applied such that some of the digitizing data will be filtered out. Then, the tool axis orientations which must be determined in 5-axis tool-path are calculated and the tool center locations are determined accordingly. A 3D biarc fitting technique is applied for all the tool center locations so that a complete 5-axis tool-path is obtained.