Determination of Parting Lines and Multiple-Undercut Boundaries for Complex CAD Parts with Application to Multi-Piece Molds Design

Abstract

This paper proposes a new slicing approach that uses multiple sets of cutting planes to automatic determine parting lines and boundaries of undercuts of complex CAD parts for the multi-piece molds design. In this algorithm, the group of feasible parting directions is first collected and three sets of cutting planes are then formed based on the primary parting direction. One set of cutting planes is used to generate slicing profiles, and two others are used to extract intersection points passed through by parting loops and boundaries of undercuts. The result shows that the proposed parting lines are suitable to obtain parting surfaces and construct the entire mold-pieces. The algorithm provides a highly effective solution for handling many complex industrial parts.