Unified cam-system architecture for die and mould manufacturing

The paper proposes an architecture for a unified computer-aided manufacturing (cam) software system for die and mould machining. Under the proposed architecture, all the major functions of various types of cam system are handled in a unified fashion: (a) the verification and correction of NC codes, (b) the generation of gouge-free NC codes from cad-file and coordinate-measuring machine data, (c) the accomodation of feedback and feedforward information, (d) the automatic generation of NC codes (i.e. generative NC), and (e) the support of concurrent-engineering and intelligent-manufacturing frameworks. The concept of a 'soft' master model is a key to the unified architecture. An approach to the implementation of such a unified cam system is also presented.