Compound surface modelling and machining (Q1110247)

A method is presented for modelling and machining `compound surfaces' commonly found in die cavities and punches. A collection of topologically unrelated surface elements specified in a domain of interest is termed as a compound surface. A constructive solid geometry scheme is employed to model compound surfaces that consist of planar surface elements, general quadratic surface elements, and composite parametric surfaces. Implementation strategies as well as computational details are presented. A prototype modelling system has been implemented on an IBM PC AT. It took less than five minutes to generate cutter location data for a compound surface of realistic complexity.