See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321474683

STL Model of Sculptured Surfaces from 3D

Unstructured Cloud of Points

Conference Paper · November 2017

CITATIONS READS

0 18

3 authors, including:

Mohamed Bey Krimo Azouaoui

Centre de Développement des Technologies … University of Science and Technology Houari…
50 PUBLICATIONS 9 CITATIONS 68 PUBLICATIONS 100 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Machining of sculptured surfaces View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mohamed Bey on 02 December 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

STL Model of Sculptured Surfaces from 3D Unstructured Cloud of Points

M. Bey1, K. Azouaoui2 and H. Bendifallah3

1
Centre de Développement des Technologies Avancées (CDTA), Algiers, Algeria. mbey@cdta.dz
2
Faculté de Génie Mécanique & Génie des Procédés, USTHB, Algiers, Algeria. azouaoui@yahoo.com
3
Centre de Développement des Technologies Avancées (CDTA), Algiers, Algeria. mbendifallah@cdta.dz

ABSTRACT. Sculptured surfaces used in the design and the manufacture of molds, aerodynamic shapes ...etc. are
machined on muti-axes CNC milling machines. To achieve a good surface finish and a reduced machining times, best
combination of tools, machining strategies and cutting conditions must be determined for roughing, semi-finishing and
finishing operations. When CAD models are available, it can be obtained from continuous mathematical representation
of surfaces. When CAD models are unavailable, Reverse Engineering is used to duplicate objects from 3D cloud of
points. Since there is no relationship between points, determination of the best combination and generation of a valid
tool path become very challenging. In this paper, for machining sculptured surfaces on 03-axis CNC milling machines,
a new approach is proposed to generate STL model approximating the geometry of surfaces from an unstructured 3D
cloud of points by combining uniform and adaptive triangulation.

INTRODUCTION
Mechanical parts with Sculptured surfaces used in automotive, aeronautical etc. industries are machined on
multi-axes CNC milling machines. Their shapes are obtained by considering surfaces models, cutting tools
forms and dimensions, machining strategies, etc. Forward Engineering or Reverse Engineering are used to
obtain surfaces models depending on the complexity of their geometries. For the first case, CAD model is
obtained from functionalities of CAD software. For the second case, physical objects are digitized to acquire
an irregular 3D cloud of points used in the reconstruction of their CAD models. To reduce the development
cycle, reconstruction step is removed and a triangulated model is generated instead of CAD model. Different
aspects related to machining of sculptured surfaces defined by 3D cloud of points are considered.
Approaches are proposed for 03-axis machining [1] and for 05-axis machining [2]. OuYang et al. [3]
selected optimal ball end tool for finishing sculptured surfaces.
In this paper, a new approach is proposed and implemented to approximate unstructured 3D cloud of points
of sculptured surfaces with holes of any shapes that are machined on 03-axis CNC machining, by a set of
triangles using uniform and adaptive triangulation and generating a minimum number of triangles.

PROPOSED APPROACH:
Grouping of points in rectangular zones: points are grouped in rectangular zones using limit coordinates,
dimensions of the raw part and the number of zones along X and Y axes (Figure 1.a).
Triangulation of the Cloud of Points: it is done in two stages.
Uniform Triangulation: from number of zones along X and Y axes, triangles in XY plane are generated and
their points are identified (Figure 1b.). Next, for each triangle is associated a plane approximating its points
using least square method and the Z coordinates of its vertices are calculated (Figure 1.d). For a triangle, the
maximum distance error between the generated plane and the points is calculated. To satisfy the continuity
between generated triangles at vertices, optimal Z coordinates of vertices are calculated for each vertex.

a. Creation of zones on XY plane. b. Uniform triangulation. d. Approximating triangle.

Figure 1. Steps of the uniform triangulation.
 Adaptive triangulation: is done if the required accuracy of approximation is not guaranteed in uniform
triangulation. It subdivides recursively triangles until the required accuracy is satisfied. Their steps are:
 Distributions of points relative to specific points: for each triangle, distributions of points relative to
vertices and middle points of its segments and corresponding densities of points are calculated (Figure 2.a).
 Adaptive subdivision of a triangle: to generate a triangulation with a regular distribution of triangles
and covering the whole area of triangles while satisfying the required accuracy, an approach permitting an
adaptive subdivision of triangles is proposed based on densities of points relative to specific points. In the
proposed approach, three subdivision schemes are possible (Figure 2.b).
 Generation of STL model: at the end, the shape of the unstructured 3D cloud of points is
approximated with triangles satisfying the required accuracy and the STL model is generated from the
coordinates of the vertices of triangles and the associated unit normal vectors.

a. Specific points of a triangle. b. Schemes of adaptive subdivision of a triangle.

Figure 2. Steps of adaptive triangulation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The proposed approach is implemented in object-oriented software under Windows using C++ Builder and
the graphics library OpenGL. Its validation is done on an irregular 3D cloud of points generated randomly
from CAD model of a complex surface (Figure 3.a). The cloud of points contains 8 622 090 points (Figure
3.b). The required accuracy is fixed equal to 0.05mm. Uniform triangulation is generated by setting number
of zones along X and Y axes equal to 10 and 20 respectively (Figure 3.c). The approach localizes holes after
filtering empty triangles. The error is greater than 0.05mm and thus adaptive triangulation must be done
(Figure 3.d). The resultant triangulation is composed of 3716 vertices and 6756 triangles. The figure shows
that the holes are very well identified and localized by the proposed subdivision approach. The proposed
approach reduces significantly the number of points (99.96%) and satisfying the required accuracy. In the
same time, a reduced number of triangles are generated which shows the effectiveness of the approach.

a. CAD model of the surface. b. 3D cloud of points. c. Uniform triangulation. d. Adaptive triangulation.
Figure 3. Results of the proposed approach.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new approach is proposed combining uniform and adaptive triangulation to approximate
unstructured 3D cloud of points of sculptured surfaces with holes of any shapes by a reduced number of
triangles under a given accuracy for 03-axis CNC machining.
REFERENCES
1. Feng, H. Y. Teng Z. (2005) Iso-planar piecewise linear NC tool path generation from discrande
measured data points, Computer-Aided Design, 37, 55–64.
2. Chui, K. L., Chiu, W.K. and Yu, K. M. (2008) Direct 5-axis tool-path generation from point cloud input
using 3D biarc fitting, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 40, 270-286.
3. OuYang, D. Van Nest, B.A., Feng, H.Y. (2005) Determining gouge free ball-end mills for 3D surface
machining from point cloud data, Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 21 (4-5), 338-345.

View publication stats