Improving the simulation efficiency in five-axis milling by using an advanced octree and an implicit formula of a generalized cutter

Abstract

This paper presents an advanced octree (AO-rep) model and an implicit formula of a generalized cutter model for five-axis milling simulation. First, the main ideal of the AO-rep model is building a hierarchical structure and representing solid volumes. The AO-rep model utilizes an octree to cull unrelated voxels, and generates a small-scale voxel model in grey octants when a cutter intersects these octants. Using a simplified intersection computation between a cube and triangles in E3, an STL model can be converted into its AO-rep model at a preprocessing stage. Second, the authors formulate an implicit function of a generalized cutter in moving cutter frame, and determine the function in fixed workpiece frame using the theory of a rigid body motion. Finally, the authors make a simulation of machining an impeller. The result shows that the proposed approach has a high performance of time and space.