Viewer, converter and preprocessor for smart machining process using an industrial robot

In this paper, viewer and converter softwares are presented for smart machining process using an industrial robot. The viewers for NC, CLS, DXF and STL files illustrate their surface representation with normal direction vectors. For example, the DXF is a data format developed by Autodesk to realize data interoperability among different makers’ CAD systems. The STL means Stereolithography which is a file format proposed by 3D Systems and recently is supported by many design tools and CAD/CAM softwares. In addition, the converters for DXF and STL files generate the corresponding CLS files with normal direction vectors for machining. Further, the proposed preprocessor allows the developed machining robot to work based on information included in STL files. The convenience and user-friendliness of the proposed integrated system are confirmed through experiments of viewing, converting and machining.