Boolean operations for 3D simulation of CNC machining of drilling tools

This paper addresses the simulation of drilling tools CNC machining. It describes a novel approach for the computation of the boundary representation of the machined tools. Machining consists of a sequence of boolean operations of difference between the tool and the grinding wheels through time. The proposed method performs the dynamic boolean operations on cross sections of the tool and it reconstructs the 3Dmodel by tiling between the cross sections. The method is based on classical computational geometry algorithms such as intersection tests, hull computations, 2D boolean operations and surface tiling. This approach is efficient and it provides user control on the resolution of the operations.