Five-Axis Tool Path Generation

Definition

In order to produce parts with a complex-shaped geometry, milling machines have to be programmed in a way that milling tool movements result in removing all necessary excessive material. Starting from a computer-aided design (CAD) model, Fig. 1illustrates the main phases of preparing the numerical control (NC) programs for NC machining. Based on the CAD model, the computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software generates a tool path, a description of tool movements in the part coordinate system, depending on the part geometry and settings defined by the CAM engineer. The output of the CAM system is a CLDATA (cutter location data) file (controller independent) which in a next step is converted by an NC postprocessor to an NC program. The latter describes the tool movements within a machine coordinate system. The postprocessor is also responsible for converting commands into a format that is supported by the exact controller of a machine at which the tool path will be executed....