Improved Algorithm to Trace Boundary Curves on Two-Dimensional Square Meshes

Abstract

In the contoured cutter path computation of a mold part, the Minkowski sum shape of the mold part CAD model and an inverted cutter model is sliced by a horizontal plane at a specific height. The cutter path can be obtained by tracing the boundary curve of the cross-sectional figure in the two-dimensional (2D) square mesh model. In the boundary curve tracing of the square mesh, the 2D marching cubes method based on the classification of the cell pattern of the mesh is typically used. We extended the classification pattern so that the existence of very small shapes in the cell, which is ignored by the conventional 2D marching cubes method, is evaluated in tracing the boundary curve. By using this technology, a robust and accurate contoured cutter path can be obtained without any increase in the computation time.