Development of Basic Software for Skill-less Manufacturing of Molds and Dies

本研究工作的目的是开发一个基本的软件包，用于在没有熟练的制造工程师的帮助下自动制造高质量的模具和模具。在这个为期三年的项目中，实现了以下技术的无技能制造；提出了一种加速零件曲面反偏移计算的新方法，这是铣削轨迹生成的关键计算。这项技术可以利用个人电脑中配备的三维图形设备实现10到100倍的加速。激光烧结是一种很有前途的技术，可以直接从模具的实体模型中制造模具。我们基于我们的“绿带”技术开发了一种新的制造系统，并进行了多次实验，以评估该技术制造对象的制造时间和表面质量。细分曲面技术是一种基于曲面上的点数据集生成光滑曲面的有效方法。该技术适用于通过物体逆偏置表面上的一些测点生成高质量的铣削轨迹。通过在加工中适当改变刀具的方向，可以进一步提高加工表面的质量。在多轴加工过程中，提出了几种有效确定最佳刀具定位的基本算法。

The purpose of this research work is a development of basic software package useful for manufacturing high-quality molds and dies automatically without the assistance of skillful manufacturing engineers. In this three years project, the following technologies for the skill-less manufacturing are realized;1. We developed a new method for accelerating the inverse offset computation of the part surface, which is the most important computation for generating the milling path. This technology can achieve 10 to 100 times acceleration by using the 3D graphics devices equipped in personal computers.2. Laser sintering is a promising technology for fabricating mold and die directly from its solid model in computers. We develop a new fabrication system based on our "green tape" technology and did several experiments for evaluating the manufacturing time and surface quality of the fabricated objects using this technology.3. Subdivision surface technique is known as a powerful method for generating a smooth surface based on a set of point data on the surface. This technology is applicable for generating a high-quality milling path running through some measured points on the inverse offset surface of the object.4. By properly changing the tool orientation in machining, further quality improvement of the machined surface is possible. We developed several basic algorithms for efficiently determining the optimum tool orientation in such multi-axis machining process.