The term ‘profile machining’ is used to refer to the milling of vertical surfaces described by profile curves. Profile machining requires higher precision (1/1000 mm) than regular 3D machining (1/100 mm) with the erosion of sharp vertices should being especially avoided. Although, profile machining is very essential for making trimming and flange dies, it seldom brought into focus. This paper addresses the technological requirements of profile machining including machining width and depth control, minimizing toolware, and protecting sharp vertices. Issues of controller alarms are also addressed.

Recently, with the rapid growth of information technology, many studies have been performed to implement Web-based manufacturing system. Such technologies are expected to meet the need of many manufacturing industries who want to adopt E-manufacturing system for the construction of globalization, agility, and digitalization to cope with the rapid changing market requirements. In this research, a real-time Web-based machine tool and machining process monitoring system is developed as the first step for implementing E-manufacturing system. In this system, the current variations of the main spindle and feeding motors are measured using hall sensors. And the relationship between the cutting force and the spindle motor RMS (Root Mean Square) current at various spindle rotational speeds is obtained. Thermocouples are used to measure temperature variations of important heat sources of a machine tool. Also, a rule-based expert system is applied in order to decide the machining process and machine tool are in normal conditions. Finally, the effectiveness of the developed system is verified through a series of experiments.

In this paper we present the MEMPHIS middleware framework for the integration of CAD geometries and assemblies with derived Virtual Reality (VR) models and its specific meta data and attributes. The goal of this work is to connect real time VR applications, especially for the Design Review, with enterprise software storing and managing CAD models (Product Data Management—PDM). The preparation of VR models requires expert knowledge, is time consuming, and includes selection of required CAD data, tessellation, healing of unwanted gaps, applying materials and textures, and special surface and light effects. During the Design Review process, decisions are made concerning the choice of materials and surface forms. While materials can be switched directly on the VR model, the modification of part geometries must be made on the CAD model. Our system synchronizes modifications of the original CAD geometries and of attributes that are relevant for the realistic rendering using the PLM Services standard. Thus, repeated work for the VR preparation can be avoided.

Pockets in proteins have been known to be very important for the life process. There have been several studies in the past to automatically extract the pockets from the structure information of known proteins. However, it is difficult to find a study comparing the precision of the extracted pockets from known pockets on the protein. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for extracting pockets from structure data of proteins and analyze the quality of the algorithm by comparing the extracted pockets with some known pockets. These results in this paper can be used to set the parameter values of the pocket extraction algorithm for getting better results.

In this paper a novel 3D model retrieval method that employs multi-level spherical moment analysis and relies on voxelization and spherical mapping of the 3D models is proposed. For a given polygon-soup 3D model, first a pose normalization step is done to align the model into a canonical coordinate frame so as to define the shape representation with respect to this orientation. Afterward we rasterize its exterior surface into cubical voxel grids, then a series of homocentric spheres with their center superposing the center of the voxel grids cut the voxel grids into several spherical images. Finally moments belonging to each sphere are computed and the moments of all spheres constitute the descriptor of the model. Experiments showed that Euclidean distance based on this kind of feature vector can distinguish different 3D models well and that the 3D model retrieval system based on this arithmetic yields satisfactory performance.

3D shape searching is a problem of current interest in several different fields. Most techniques are developed for a particular domain and used to reduce a shape into a simpler shape representation. The techniques developed for a particular domain will also find application in other domains. We propose a new shape matching method. The SSRD (spherical sectioning railroad diagram) algorithm has the general shape distribution’s properties and overall features of the original model. The SSRD’s useful properties are discussed. We show the experimental results for the validity of our method.

3D solid models for parts with regular-form surfaces (PRFSs) are effectively generated using traditional parametric design techniques. A new model is obtained by changing some parameters defining the model. The parts with free-form surfaces (PFFSs), however, cannot be defined by several parameters. Usually they are defined by some geometric elements like profile curves. The traditional parametric design approaches have not easily dealt with the PFFSs. A method for generating a solid model and an engineering drawing for PFFSs is proposed in this paper: First, the new profiles are generated from input point data. Second, the profile information is extracted from the existing model. Last, the old profiles are replaced with the new profiles. This method can preserve the associative information of the existing model and automatically generate the drawing including views, dimensions, and annotations. The proposed method has been implemented using a commercial CAD/CAM system, Unigraphics, and API functions written in C-language, and were applied to the blades of a turbine generator. Some illustrative examples are provided in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

3D computer-aided design (CAD) systems based on feature-based solid modelling technique have been widely spread and used for product design. However, when part models associated with features are used in various downstream applications, simplified models in various levels of detail (LODs) are frequently more desirable than the full details of the parts. In particular, the need for feature-based multiresolution representation of a solid model representing an object at multiple LODs in the feature unit is increasing for engineering tasks. One challenge is to generate valid models at various LODs after an arbitrary rearrangement of features using a certain LOD criterion, because composite Boolean operations consisting of union and subtraction are not commutative. The other challenges are to devise proper topological framework for multiresolution representation, to suggest more reasonable LOD criteria, and to extend applications. This paper surveys the recent research on these issues.

Minimal surface is extensively employed in many areas. In this paper, we propose a control mesh representation of a class of minimal surfaces, called generalized helicoid minimal surfaces, which contain the right helicoid and catenoid as special examples. We firstly construct the Bézier-like basis called AHT Bézier basis in the space spanned by {1, t, sint, cost, sinht, cosht}, t∈[0,α], α∈[0,5π/2]. Then we propose the control mesh representation of the generalized helicoid using the AHT Bézier basis. This kind of representation enables generating the minimal surfaces using the de Casteljau-like algorithm in CAD/CAGD modelling systems.

A class of quasi-cubic B-spline base functions by trigonometric polynomials are established which inherit properties similar to those of cubic B-spline bases. The corresponding curves with a shape parameter α, defined by the introduced base functions, include the B-spline curves and can approximate the B-spline curves from both sides. The curves can be adjusted easily by using the shape parameter α, where dp_i(α,t) is linear with respect to dα for the fixed t. With the shape parameter chosen properly, the defined curves can be used to precisely represent straight line segments, parabola segments, circular arcs and some transcendental curves, and the corresponding tensor product surfaces can also represent spherical surfaces, cylindrical surfaces and some transcendental surfaces exactly. By abandoning positive property, this paper proposes a new C² continuous blended interpolation spline based on piecewise trigonometric polynomials associated with a sequence of local parameters. Illustration showed that the curves and surfaces constructed by the blended spline can be adjusted easily and freely. The blended interpolation spline curves can be shape-preserving with proper local parameters since these local parameters can be considered to be the magnification ratio to the length of tangent vectors at the interpolating points. The idea is extended to produce blended spline surfaces.

The problem of parametric speed approximation of a rational curve is raised in this paper. Offset curves are widely used in various applications. As for the reason that in most cases the offset curves do not preserve the same polynomial or rational polynomial representations, it arouses difficulty in applications. Thus approximation methods have been introduced to solve this problem. In this paper, it has been pointed out that the crux of offset curve approximation lies in the approximation of parametric speed. Based on the Jacobi polynomial approximation theory with endpoints interpolation, an algebraic rational approximation algorithm of offset curve, which preserves the direction of normal, is presented.

A family of two-order Hermite vector-interpolating subdivision schemes is proposed and its convergence and continuity are analyzed. The iterative level can be estimated for given error. The sufficient conditions of C² continuity are proved. Geometric features of subdivision curves, such as line segments, cusps and inflection points, are obtained by appending some conditions to initial vectorial Hermite sequence. An algorithm is presented for generating geometric features. For an initial sequence of two-order Hermite elements from unit circle, the numerical error of the 4th subdivided level is O(10⁻⁴).

Kjellander has reported an algorithm for fairing uniform parametric cubic splines. Poliakoff extended Kjellander’s algorithm to non-uniform case. However, they merely changed the bad point’s position, and neglected the smoothing of tangent at bad point. In this paper, we present a fairing algorithm that both changed point’s position and its corresponding tangent vector. The new algorithm possesses the minimum property of energy. We also proved Poliakoff’s fairing algorithm is a deduction of our fairing algorithm. Several fairing examples are given in this paper.

Many graphics and computer-aided design applications require that the polygonal meshes used in geometric computing have the properties of not only 2-manifold but also are orientable. In this paper, by collecting previous work scattered in the topology and geometry literature, we rigorously present a theoretical basis for orientable polygonal surface representation from a modern point of view. Based on the presented basis, we propose a new combinatorial data structure that can guarantee the property of orientable 2-manifolds and is primal/dual efficient. Comparisons with other widely used data structures are also presented in terms of time and space efficiency.

A meshless simulation system is presented for elastic deformation driven by skeleton in this paper. In this system, we propose a new method for calculating node rotation while applying a similar technique with stiffness warping to tackle the nonlinear large deformation. In our method, all node rotations are evaluated from sampling points in attached skeleton by constructing and solving the diffusion partial differential equation. The experiments indicated that the method can enhance the stability of the dynamics and avoid fussy sub-step calculation in static deformation edition. Moreover, rational deformation results for the area around the skeleton joints can be simulated without user interaction by adopting the simplified technique.

Motivated by the conception of Lee et al.(2005)’s mesh saliency and Chen (2005)’s contextual discontinuities, a novel adaptive smoothing approach is proposed for noise removal and feature preservation. Mesh saliency is employed as a multiscale measure to detect contextual discontinuity for feature preserving and control of the smoothing speed. The proposed method is similar to the bilateral filter method. Comparative results demonstrate the simplicity and efficiency of the presented method, which makes it an excellent solution for smoothing 3D noisy meshes.

The purpose of this study is to develop a Web-based on-machine mould identification and measurement system. The Web-based mould identification system matches obtained vision information with CAD database. Developed Web-based system is to exchange messages between a server and a client by making of ActiveX control, and the result of mould identification is shown on Web-browser at remote site. For effective feature classification and extraction, the signature method is used to make meaningful information from obtained image data. For on-machine measurement of the matched mould, inspection database is constructed from CAD database using developed inspection planning methods. The results are simulated and analyzed using developed system to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is an adaptive and approximately orthogonal filtering process that reflects human’s visual mechanism of differentiating textures. In this paper, we present a modified 2D EMD algorithm using the FastRBF and an appropriate number of iterations in the shifting process (SP), then apply it to texture classification. Rotation-invariant texture feature vectors are extracted using auto-registration and circular regions of magnitude spectra of 2D fast Fourier transform (FFT). In the experiments, we employ a Bayesion classifier to classify a set of 15 distinct natural textures selected from the Brodatz album. The experimental results, based on different testing datasets for images with different orientations, show the effectiveness of the proposed classification scheme.

Computing the distance between two convex polygons is often a basic step to the algorithms of collision detection and path planning. Now, the lowest time complexity algorithm takes O(logm+logn) time to compute the minimum distance between two disjoint convex polygons P and Q, where n and m are the number of the polygons’ edges respectively. This paper discusses the location relations of outer Voronoi diagrams of two disjoint convex polygons P and Q, and presents a new O(logm+logn) algorithm to compute the minimum distance between P and Q. The algorithm is simple and easy to implement, and does not need any preprocessing and extra data structures.

The problem of spherical parametrization is that of mapping a genus-zero mesh onto a spherical surface. For a given mesh, different parametrizations can be obtained by different methods. And for a certain application, some parametrization results might behave better than others. In this paper, we will propose a method to parametrize a genus-zero mesh so that a surface fitting algorithm with PHT-splines can generate good result. Here the parametrization results are obtained by minimizing discrete harmonic energy subject to spherical constraints. Then some applications are given to illustrate the advantages of our results. Based on PHT-splines, parametric surfaces can be constructed efficiently and adaptively to fit genus-zero meshes after their spherical parametrization has been obtained.