Region based five-axis tool path generation for freeform surface machining via image representation

This paper inaugurates a brand new five-axis tool path generation method for freeform surface machining, which is solely based on digital image processing. By utilizing image representation, a freeform surface can be digitized into a uniform grayscale image. With this novel representation, we come up with a region based five-axis tool path scheme with remarkably enhanced utility towards freeform surface machining process. The image representation possesses sufficient geometric data for us to evaluate the surface normal distribution and split the surface area accordingly via image processing algorithms. Since each partitioned region contains a limited surface inclination range, one rotary axis is locked with a certain angle during the processing of this region. In addition, by further exploiting the potential of the image representation, the cutter contact (CC) curves are extracted purely from the image of each partitioned region. Preliminary results show that this method is more than adequate for the tool path computation. The computed tool path outperforms the benchmarks by reducing the machining time for as much as 40%, as verified in the physical cutting test.