Free-form die-cavity pocketing

This paper deals with the tool path optimisation procedure in free form die-cavity pocketing. Many researchers have investigated pocket machining problems, and most of them focused on the tool-path element generation problem, which has been regarded as the key issue in the pocketing tool-path generation. However, free form die-cavity pocketing involves many other problems, such as machining area extraction, uncut removal, local tool path linking and global tool path linking. All these problems should be solved to optimise pocketing tool path and each of them involves its own geometrical and technological issues. The objective of this paper is not to develop a new algorithm, but to achieve the global optimisation of pocket machining by considering all issues and solutions in pocketing.