System for automatically generating tool path data for automatic machining center
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorsTetsuzo Kuragano, Nobuo Sasaki
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for establishing data defining a path for machining tool such as a three-axes milling machine tool. The machining tool path is established within a three-dimensional rectangular coordinate system which corresponds to a machine coordinate system for numerical control. The tool path is established along a first coordinate axis. The tool path is shifted to an adjacent path along the first coordinate axis in a second axis direction. The shifting pitch of the path corresponds to the interval of said path along the first the coordinate axis. The tool is shifted in third axis direction during travel along the path defined in the first and second axis direction.
Claims21
A system for establishing data defining a tool path for a numerically controlled machine of the type having a machining tool of a known configuration from data describing a three-dimensionally curved surface, comprising:
- means for forming data representing a polyhedral surface offset from said three-dimensionally curved surface by a distance determined according to the lo configuration of the machining tool, said polyhedral offset surface being constituted by a plurality of surface elements;
- means for deriving the sizes of said surface elements in view of a given dimensional tolerance so as to define an error distance between the polyhedral surface to be machined and said three-dimensionally curved surface described by said data which error distance is smaller than said dimensioal tolerance;
- means for deriving a feed pitch of said machining tool in view of a given surface roughness tolerance so that said polyhedral surface to be machined will have a surface roughness in conformance with said surface roughness tolerance relative to said three-dimensionally curved surface;
- and
- means for sampling coordinate data of said surface elements, and deriving data defining said machining tool path on the basis of said sampled coordinate data and said machining tool feed pitch.
A system for establishing electronic signal data defining a path for a machining tool which is movable along three axes in a three-dimensional rectangular coordinate system constituted by mutually perpendicular first, second and third coordinate axes, comprising:
- a first means for receiving input design data which describes a curved surface to be machined and dimensional tolerance data and wherein said first means, on the basis of the dimensional tolerance data, derives dimensional factors for a plurality of essentially flat surface elements which constitute a polyhedral surface equivalent to the curved surface described by the design data;
- a second means for receiving input surface roughness tolerance data and for deriving a machining factor for machining each of said surface elements on the basis of the surface roughness tolerance data;
- a third means for mathematically establishing said polyhedral surface on the basis of said dimensional factors;
- a fourth means for mathematically determining a plurality of sampling points on said polyhedral surface, about which position data are to be sampled, said fourth means determining the density of said sampling points on said polyhedral surface in conformance with said machining factor, and said fourth means further identifying the orientation of each of said sampling points in a two-dimensional coordinate system defined by said first and second coordinate axes;
- a fifth means, cooperative with said fourth means, for sampling coordinate data of the respective sampling points;
- and
- a sixth means for mathematically establishing data defining a first component of said tool path on the basis of said sampled data and the position data of the respective sampling points.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.