Integration of Additive Manufacturing and Virtual Verification Strategies within a Commercial CAM System

AbstractAdditive manufacturing (AM) processes are becoming more common; however, there is little process planning control. Standalone proprietary software is used by AM systems to create a build file that displays the travel paths, but not a complete representative model, which may not be optimal. Integrating AM into existing CAM systems provides a direct link between the CAD model and the AM build file, as well as allowing planners to directly combine additive and subtractive operations. When considering the number of entities and constraints related to the travel paths, most of the AM processes are a derivative of the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process; consequently, modeling the FDM process within a commercial CAM system is the focus of this research. An AM user interface and a process verification system based on the X3D standard is developed, as current machining verification solid modeling kernels have been found to not be suited due to the number of entities to be processed. Various examples a...