Automated manufacturing architectural millwork
OwnerRobert Anthony BAKERinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for making made-to-order architectural millwork of custom dimensions; including the design of wood joints and a system for deploying them within the overall structural design of individual architectural millwork units, as well as methods for online design and ordering, automated writing of machine code, robotic part preparation, and simplified on-site installation. With the automation and generation of digital code for manufacturing custom architectural components, this method makes the formation of distributed manufacturing centers possible. Through this method and with minimum re-tooling and/or training, these centers are able to produce custom millwork more efficiently and effectively than traditional custom millwork woodshops.
Claims17
A computer program product for designing a unit embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising program code that, when executed, causes a computer to perform the steps of:
- receiving, from a user interface, a set of specifications;
- calculating a set of dimensions for the unit based on the set of specifications;
- modeling a plurality of pieces corresponding to a unit assembly, wherein each piece has a plurality of edges;
- creating a plurality of vectors corresponding to the plurality of edges, wherein each edge corresponds to a single vector, and wherein each vector stores direction and length information corresponding to the edge;
- creating a plurality of point objects corresponding to each vector;
- determining a location of each point object based on the length and direction of each vector,
- determining a plurality of joints to be used to connect the plurality of pieces based on a desired position of each of the plurality of pieces in the unit assembly;
- determining a type of edge to be applied to each vector and between each point;
- determining which of the plurality of edges are connected or contact each other;
- modifying a plurality of connected edges in the plurality of edges which are determined to be connected, wherein modifying the one or more connected edges comprises adding a plurality of joints;
- generating CNC data based on the modeled plurality of pieces;
- and
- providing a CNC machine with the CNC data to generate a plurality of parts based on the modeled plurality of pieces.
A computer program product for designing a unit, comprising:
- providing, to a user, a user interface comprising a design interface;
- receiving, from the design interface, a plurality of design parameters for the unit, the plurality of unit parameters comprising at least two of the set of:
- a type of the unit, a length of the unit, a height of the unit, a width of the unit, a depth of the unit;
- wherein the unit is modeled as a set in a network of sets comprising at least one parent set and a plurality of child sets, the at least one first parent set corresponds to an overall space, each parent set has at least two corresponding child sets, and each child set has one corresponding parent set.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.