DEVELOPING A FEATURE BASED KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM FOR CAD CAM INTEGRATION

The objective of this research is to develop a small scale prototype system of a larger system that would be implemented in a manufacturing organization to demonstrate the potential application of the form feature primitive concept in defining a part for CAD and CAM integration. The capability of this system includes: (1) interactively create a part definition data file for a part by using a set of form features, (2) graphically display the part, (3) automatically generate a process plan and a cutter locations file for the part using the same part definition data file, (4) simulate and verify the tool path, (5) interpret the cutter locations file into a NC code for a selected NC machine, and (6) down load the NC code to the machine. An example demonstrates the feasibility of this system.