Extraction of manufacturing features from a feature-based design model

With the thriving advancement of computer-integrated manufacturing systems, a further elevation of process-planning automation has become a must. In order to target automated process planning, one has to gain more understanding on how the manufacturing information can be obtained directly from parts' CAD models. In essence, a computer-aided process planning system uses 'manufacturing features' to generate information about machining operations for a part. The information from manufacturing features, however, is not explicitly embedded in traditional CAD systems. Therefore, one resorts to a certain method which leads to manufacturing features by analysing and reasoning part geometry. In regard to the above issue, there are two primary approaches found in literature, namely design by features and feature recognition. This paper attempts to integrate these two approaches to accomplish automatic extraction of manufacturing features from a design-oriented feature model. Pro/ENGINEER, a commercial feature-based CAD package, is used in this research as the source of part models. The solid geometry together with the data of design features are extracted through the use of Pro/DEVELOP, a system development tool of Pro/ENGINEER. The extracted feature data is then analysed respectively by face re-organization, feature recognition, and feature concatenation algorithms. The final results are a set of manufacturing features which can be used, directly or indirectly, in the downstream manufacturing activities, including process planning, NC cutter path generation, and operation scheduling.