A feedback toolpath generation method for compound trimmed surface with machine’s dynamic characteristics confined

The toolpath generation for compound surface is a complicated task for five-axis manufacturing, especially in high-speed machining. The toolpath efficiency is not only determined by its geometry pattern but also affected by its trajectory interpolation result. Besides, the trimmed patches of sub-surfaces increase the difficulty of planning the toolpaths on the whole surface. The traditional way like iso-parameter method or iso-planar method is blocked by the compound surface’s incomplete parameter domain or the splicing boundary. To handle these problems, a labeled grid-based method is proposed in this paper to identify the sub-surface’s parameter boundary at first. Then, the trimmed boundary of the parameter zone is acquired by a searching method. Secondly a specification of topology description is given to manipulate the patch across problem. After the geometry issues are solved, the final toolpaths which constrained by the machine tool’s dynamic characteristics are generated; this stage includes three main steps: (1) the connection of the cutter contact points, especially connecting the points cross the patched; (2) the toolpath pattern selection, according to the machining efficiency; and (3) the whole toolpaths generation. The salient advantage of this method is that the toolpath planning is conducted in a whole parameter zone which composes of each sub-surface, so the obtained toolpaths are smoother and take the compound surface’s geometry features into account. Finally, the proposed method is verified by a C++ program.