Automatic Generation of Tool Path from Point Cloud Input for Sculpture Surface Machining

  • Shashikant J. Joshi, Dhaval B. Shah, Kaushik M. Patel, Mohit Ojha

Abstract

The machining methods for sculptured surfaces are highly significant in complicated shape components manufacturing. In this paper, the Iso-planar method is selected to generate a tool path because of its simplicity and robustness.  This method is applied to any polyhedral model to generate a tool path for 3-axis VMC. The stereolithography file is created from the polyhedral model to generate triangular facets. A MATLAB program is developed to gather all the vertices and facet normal data. The drive planes are introduced throughout the triangular surface to get the crossing points between the plane and triangular facets which are cutter location data for tool path. Rough cut paths and finish cut paths are then generated for the complete machining process. The G-code file executed by the MATLAB program has been validated with NX-CAM software and experimentally on VMC. The dimensional accuracy using a 3D scanning technique for the manufactured model has been achieved up to 5% compared to the CAD model.

Published
2020-03-30
How to Cite
Shashikant J. Joshi, Dhaval B. Shah, Kaushik M. Patel, Mohit Ojha. (2020). Automatic Generation of Tool Path from Point Cloud Input for Sculpture Surface Machining. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(3), 12384 - 12395. Retrieved from http://sersc.org/journals/index.php/IJAST/article/view/30331
Section
Articles