System and method for controlling a wire electric discharge machine

A method for machining a workpiece, comprising:

• delivering a wire electrode into proximity of the workpiece;
• creating an electric discharge between the wire electrode and the workpiece;
• illuminating the wire electrode with an encoded illumination pattern;
• acquiring a set of images indicative of the wire electrode illuminated by an encoded illumination pattern at different positions;
• reconstructing positions of at least a segment of the wire electrode at a reconstruction rate greater than an acquisition rate of a camera that acquires the set of images, by utilization of compressive sensing with sparse reconstruction;
• and
• controlling at least one of:
• a delivery system that delivers the wire electrode into proximity of the workpiece and an energy source that creates the electric discharge, based on the positions of at least the segment of the wire electrode reconstructed at the reconstruction rate.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for machining a workpiece, the computer-executable instructions configured for:

• delivering a wire electrode into proximity of a workpiece;
• creating an electric discharge between the wire electrode and the workpiece;
• illuminating the wire electrode with an encoded illumination pattern;
• acquiring a set of images indicative of the wire electrode illuminated by an encoded illumination pattern at different positions;
• reconstructing positions of at least a segment of the wire electrode at a reconstruction rate greater than an acquisition rate of a camera that acquires the set of images, by utilization of compressive sensing with sparse reconstruction;
• and
• controlling at least one of:
• a delivery system that delivers the wire electrode into proximity of the workpiece and an energy source that creates the electric discharge, based on the positions of at least the segment of the wire electrode reconstructed at the reconstruction rate.