Abstract
Free-form surfaces represented by triangular meshes are widely used in modern product design and manufacture. However, most existing methods are very limited to machining mesh surfaces. In this paper, a new tool-path generation method is presented for machining mesh surfaces by three-axis ball-end milling. First, angle-based flattening, a recently emerging parameterization technique, is used to map triangular meshes from a three-dimensional (3D) physical space to a two-dimensional (2D) parametric plane. Then, the cutter contact points are calculated by continuously offsetting a drive curve. The main advantage of the method is that it reduces the task of tool-path generation from 3D to 2D space. Therefore, the tool-path generation can be analysed and calculated in a plane. This results in an efficient tool-path generation method, without complex geometric calculation such as determining drive plane, surface slicing, and intersection, in a 3D space. Its feasibility and efficiency are demonstrated by several experiments.