A CAD/CAM system from 3D coordinate measuring data

A CAD/CAM system with some new numerical methods is presented in this paper. This system mainly consists of two stages. In stage 1, the least squares method is applied to fit a best form of parametric surface to a set of data points obtained from a 3D coordinate measuring machine, with the errors caused by the probe compensated. In stage 2, from the best form of parametric surface obtained in stage 1, a new efficient method—adaptive path planning—which has better performance than the old parametric method is developed to generate the cutter path. By application of adaptive path planning, machining time can be reduced. By transforming the cutter contact path to the cutter location path, the curvature method for detecting gouging is presented by which a tool path with gouging avoidance can be generated.