Data exchage between different CAD/CAM systems is an important issue in CAD/CAM integration and in CIM. Proposed in this thesis is a method of converting parametric surface data into a non-parmetric Z-Map form. The proposed conversion method is applicable to any CAD system, but the CAD system CATIA is used as an example. The Parametric surface data stored in a CATIA text file format, which is termed an SSES(Simple Surface Exchange Specification) format, is read in and then an internal parametric polynomial surface model is constructed. The next step is to convert the polynomial model into the Bezier form from which z-values of the surface are sampled at predefined grid points on the xy-plane. The proposed conversion method is as follows : 1) the Bezier control polygon and samlped surface unit normal vectors are used for testing whether the given input face can be converted into a single Z-Map surface or not, 2) a 2D Jacobian Inversion method is used for Z-Map sampling when input face can be converted into a single Z-Map, 3) A subdivision method is used for Z-Map sampling when input face can't be converted into a single Z-Map (that is the face has more than one z-value at the grid point).
