Virtual reality based creation of concept model designs for CAD systems

This work introduces a novel method to overcome most of the drawbacks in traditional methods for creating design models. The main innovation is the use of virtual tools to simulate the natural physical environment in which freeform. Design models are created by experienced designers. Namely, the model is created in a virtual environment by carving a work piece with tools that simulate NC milling cutters. Algorithms have been developed to support the approach, in which the design model is created in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment and selection and manipulation of tools can be performed in the virtual space. The desianer\u27s hand movements generate the tool trajectories and they are obtained by recording the position and orientation of a hand mounted motion tracker. Swept volumes of virtual tools are generated from the geometry of the tool and its trajectories. Then Boolean operations are performed on the swept volumes and the initial virtual stock (work piece) to create the design model. Algorithms have been developed as a part of this work to integrate the VR environment with a commercial CAD/CAM system in order to demonstrate the practical applications of the research results. The integrated system provides a much more efficient and easy-to-implement process of freeform model creation than employed in current CAD/CAM software. It could prove to be the prototype for the next-generation CAD/CAM system

Automated Digital Machining for Parallel Processors

When a process engineer creates a tool path a number of fixed decisions are made that inevitably produce sub-optimal results. This is because it is impossible to process all of the tradeoffs before generating the tool path. The research presents a methodology to support a process engineers attempt to generate optimal tool paths by performing automated digital machining and analysis. This methodology automatically generates and evaluates tool paths based on parallel processing of digital part models and generalized cutting geometry. Digital part models are created by voxelizing STL files and the resulting digital part surfaces are obtained based on casting rays into the part model. Tool paths are generated based on a general path template and updated based on generalized tool geometry and part surface information. The material removed by the generalized cutter as it follows the path is used to obtain path metrics. The paths are evaluated based on the path metrics of material removal rate, machining time, and amount of scallop. This methodology is a parallel processing accelerated framework suitable for generating tool paths in parallel enabling the process engineer to rank and select the best tool path for the job

An analytical model taking feed rate effect into consideration for scallop height calculation in milling with torus-end cutter

International audienceFeed rate effect on scallop height in complex surface milling by torus-end mill is rarely studied. In a previous paper, an analytical predictive model of scallop height based on transverse step over distance has been established. However, this model doesn’t take feed rate effect into consideration. In the present work an analytical expression of scallop height, including feed rate effect, is detailed in order to quantify feed rate effect and thus to estimate more precisely the surface quality. Then, an experimental validation is conducted, comparing the presented model predictions with experimental results. Actually, the share of the scallop height due to feed effect is highly dependent on the machining configuration. However, most of time, the feed effect on total scallop height values is far from being negligible

Integrated process planning for a hybrid manufacturing system

A hybrid manufacturing system integrated CNC machining and laser-aided layered deposition and achieves the benefits of both processes. In this dissertation, an integrated process planning framework which aims to automate the hybrid manufacturing process is investigated. Critical components of the process planning, including 3D spatial decomposition of the CAD model, improvement of the toolpath generation pattern, repairing strategies using a hybrid manufacturing system, etc., are discussed --Abstract, page iv

오프셋 곡선 및 곡면의 자가 교차 검출 및 제거

학위논문(박사)--서울대학교 대학원 :공과대학 컴퓨터공학부,2020. 2. 김명수.Offset curves and surfaces have many applications in computer-aided design and manufacturing, but the self-intersections and redundancies must be trimmed away for their practical use. We present a new method for offset curve and surface trimming that detects the self-intersections and eliminates the redundant parts of an offset curve and surface that are closer than the offset distance to the original curve and surface. We first propose an offset trimming method based on constructing geometric constraint equations. We formulate the constraint equations of the self-intersections of an offset curve and surface in the parameter domain of the original curve and surface. Numerical computations based on the regularity and intrinsic properties of the given input curve and surface is carried out to compute the solution of the constraint equations. The method deals with numerical instability around near-singular regions of an offset surface by using osculating tori that can be constructed in a highly stable way, i.e., by offsetting the osculating torii of the given input regular surface. We reveal the branching structure and the terminal points from the complete self-intersection curves of the offset surface. From the observation that the trimming method based on the multivariate equation solving is computationally expensive, we also propose an acceleration technique to trim an offset curve and surface. The alternative method constructs a bounding volume hierarchy specially designed to enclose the offset curve and surface and detects the self-collision of the bounding volumes instead. In the case of an offset surface, the thickness of the bounding volumes is indirectly determined based on the maximum deviations of the positions and the normals between the given input surface patches and their osculating tori. For further acceleration, the bounding volumes are pruned as much as possible during self-collision detection using various geometric constraints imposed on the offset surface. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the new trimming method using several non-trivial test examples of offset trimming. Lastly, we investigate the problem of computing the Voronoi diagram of a freeform surface using the offset trimming technique for surfaces. By trimming the offset surface with a gradually changing offset radius, we compute the boundary of the Voronoi cells that appear in the concave side of the given input surface. In particular, we interpret the singular and branching points of the self-intersection curves of the trimmed offset surfaces in terms of the boundary elements of the Voronoi diagram.오프셋 곡선 및 곡면은 computer-aided design (CAD)와 computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)에서 널리 이용되는 연산들 중 하나이다. 하지만 실용적인 활용을 위해서는 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면에서 생기는 자가 교차를 찾고 이를 기준으로 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면에서 원래의 곡선 및 곡면에 가까운 불필요한 영역을 제거하여야한다. 본 논문에서는 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면에서 생기는 자가 교차를 계산하고, 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면에서 생기는 불필요한 영역을 제거하는 알고리즘을 제안한다. 본 논문은 우선 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면의 자가 교차점들과 그 교차점들이 기인한 원래 곡선 및 곡면의 점들이 이루는 평면 이등변 삼각형 관계로부터 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면의 자가 교차점의 제약 조건을 만족시키는 방정식들을 세운다. 이 제약식들은 원래 곡선 및 곡면의 변수 공간에서 표현되며, 이 방정식들의 해는 다변수 방정식의 해를 구하는 solver를 이용하여 구한다. 오프셋 곡면의 경우, 원래 곡면의 주곡률 중 하나가 오프셋 반지름의 역수와 같을 때 오프셋 곡면의 법선이 정의가 되지 않는 특이점이 생기는데, 오프셋 곡면의 자가 교차 곡선이 이 부근을 지날 때는 자가 교차 곡선의 계산이 불안정해진다. 따라서 자가 교차 곡선이 오프셋 곡면의 특이점 부근을 지날 때는 오프셋 곡면을 접촉 토러스로 치환하여 더 안정된 방법으로 자가 교차 곡선을 구한다. 계산된 오프셋 곡면의 자가 교차 곡선으로부터 교차 곡선의 $xyz$-공간에서의 말단 점, 가지 구조 등을 밝힌다. 본 논문은 또한 바운딩 볼륨 기반의 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면의 자가 교차 곡선 검출을 가속화하는 방법을 제시한다. 바운딩 볼륨은 기저 곡선 및 곡면을 단순한 기하로 감싸고 기하 연산을 수행함으로써 가속화에 기여한다. 오프셋 곡면의 자가 교차 곡선을 구하기 위하여, 본 논문은 오프셋 곡면의 바운딩 볼륨 구조를 기저 곡면의 바운딩 볼륨과 기저 곡면의 법선 곡면의 바운딩 볼륨의 구조로부터 계산하며 이때 각 바운딩 볼륨의 두께를 계산한다. 또한, 바운딩 볼륨 중에서 실제 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면의 자가 교차에 기여하지 않는 부분을 깊은 재귀 전에 찾아서 제거하는 여러 조건들을 나열한다. 한편, 자가 교차가 제거된 오프셋 곡선 및 곡면은 기저 곡선 및 곡면의 보로노이 구조와 깊은 관련이 있는 것이 알려져 있다. 본 논문에서는 자유 곡면의 연속된 오프셋 곡면들로부터 자유 곡면의 보로노이 구조를 유추하는 방법을 제시한다. 특히, 오프셋 곡면의 자가 교차 곡선 상에서 나타나는 가지 점이나 말단 점과 같은 특이점들이 자유 곡면의 보로노이 구조에서 어떻게 해석되는지 제시한다.1. Introduction 1 1.1 Background and Motivation 1 1.2 Research Objectives and Approach 7 1.3 Contributions and Thesis Organization 11 2. Preliminaries 14 2.1 Curve and Surface Representation 14 2.1.1 Bezier Representation 14 2.1.2 B-spline Representation 17 2.2 Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces 19 2.2.1 Differential Geometry of Curves 19 2.2.2 Differential Geometry of Surfaces 21 3. Previous Work 23 3.1 Offset Curves 24 3.2 Offset Surfaces 27 3.3 Offset Curves on Surfaces 29 4. Trimming Offset Curve Self-intersections 32 4.1 Experimental Results 35 5. Trimming Offset Surface Self-intersections 38 5.1 Constraint Equations for Offset Self-Intersections 38 5.1.1 Coplanarity Constraint 39 5.1.2 Equi-angle Constraint 40 5.2 Removing Trivial Solutions 40 5.3 Removing Normal Flips 41 5.4 Multivariate Solver for Constraints 43 5.A Derivation of f(u,v) 46 5.B Relationship between f(u,v) and Curvatures 47 5.3 Trimming Offset Surfaces 50 5.4 Experimental Results 53 5.5 Summary 57 6. Acceleration of trimming offset curves and surfaces 62 6.1 Motivation 62 6.2 Basic Approach 67 6.3 Trimming an Offset Curve using the BVH 70 6.4 Trimming an Offset Surface using the BVH 75 6.4.1 Offset Surface BVH 75 6.4.2 Finding Self-intersections in Offset Surface Using BVH 87 6.4.3 Tracing Self-intersection Curves 98 6.5 Experimental Results 100 6.6 Summary 106 7. Application of Trimming Offset Surfaces: 3D Voronoi Diagram 107 7.1 Background 107 7.2 Approach 110 7.3 Experimental Results 112 7.4 Summary 114 8. Conclusion 119 Bibliography iDocto

Geometry and tool motion planning for curvature adapted CNC machining

CNC machining is the leading subtractive manufacturing technology. Although it is in use since decades, it is far from fully solved and still a rich source for challenging problems in geometric computing. We demonstrate this at hand of 5-axis machining of freeform surfaces, where the degrees of freedom in selecting and moving the cutting tool allow one to adapt the tool motion optimally to the surface to be produced. We aim at a high-quality surface finish, thereby reducing the need for hard-to-control post-machining processes such as grinding and polishing. Our work is based on a careful geometric analysis of curvature-adapted machining via so-called second order line contact between tool and target surface. On the geometric side, this leads to a new continuous transition between “dual” classical results in surface theory concerning osculating circles of surface curves and oscu- lating cones of tangentially circumscribed developable surfaces. Practically, it serves as an effective basis for tool motion planning. Unlike previous approaches to curvature-adapted machining, we solve locally optimal tool positioning and motion planning within a single optimization framework and achieve curvature adaptation even for convex surfaces. This is possible with a toroidal cutter that contains a negatively curved cutting area. The effectiveness of our approach is verified at hand of digital models, simulations and machined parts, including a comparison to results generated with commercial software

Curve-guided 5-axis CNC flank milling of free-form surfaces using custom-shaped tools

A new method for 5-axis flank milling of free-form surfaces is proposed. Existing flank milling path-planning methods typically use on-market milling tools whose shape is cylindrical or conical, and is therefore not well-suited for meeting fine tolerances for manufacturing of benchmark free-form surfaces like turbine blades, gears, or blisks. In contrast, our optimization-based framework incorporates the shape of the tool into the optimization cycle and looks not only for the milling paths, but also for the shape of the tool itself. Given a free-form reference surface and a guiding path that roughly indicates the motion of the milling tool, tangential movability of quadruplets of spheres centered along a straight line is analyzed to indicate possible shapes and their motions. This results in $G^1$ Hermite data in the space of rigid body motions that are interpolated and further optimized, both in terms of the motion and the shape of the milling tool itself. We demonstrate our algorithm on synthetic free-form surfaces and industrial benchmark datasets, showing that the use of custom-shaped tools is capable of meeting fine industrial tolerances and outperforms the use of classical, on-market tools.RYC-2017-2264