This thesis describes a procedure of generating economic Cutter-Location (CL) data for the machining of sculptured surfaces on a multi-axis NC Milling Machine. Measures of economy are the machining time (cutter move distance) and the length of NC tape (number of CL data points). The proposed procedure tries to minimize both the number of CL data and the total distance of cutter moves, for a given cutter (spherical end-mill) size and parametric cutting direction, while satisfying given tolerance requirements.
The procedure has been implemented in FORTRAN for a smooth composite Bezier surface. The maximum allowable cutter size is calculated by the program so that a user can choose a cutter size.
CL data can be generated in both parametric directions u and v. Computational results show that there are significant differences in the machining time (and the length of NC tape) between the parametric directions.
