A new compressed voxel-based method for swept volume modeling of drum cutter and its application

Swept surface model of a drum cutter is established and discretized into uniformly distributed voxel model by ray casting approach. Solid model of the cutter is stored in the form of three mutually perpendicular rays array along X, Y, Z axis, with each ray being originated from the cutter swept surface and offset from its neighboring one at a distance of voxel size, resulting in a compressed dexel model. Boolean operation of the cutter swept surface with workpiece is fulfilled among one-dimensional dexel arrays and workpiece at high speed. Marching cube algorithm is applied to build the triangle mesh model of machined workpiece which can be observed in real time from any direction. This method was applied in five-axis NC simulation system base on compressed voxel model, which has gained excellent effect. The disadvantages of current five-axis NC simulation method and commercial software systems are overcome. The method is the key technology for the virtual numerical control machining