Using 2D Contours to Model Metal Sheets in Industrial Machining Processes

The cutting and punching industrial processes can be conceptualized as material removal methods, where the sheet is being transformed as the running CNC program is being executed by the NC machine. The simulation of such processes has to take into account this increasing complexity of the metal sheet. In this work we introduce a representation based on 2D contours to model the metal sheet in such industrial processes. All the operations of the programs are transformed to Boolean operations between the sheet and the sweep of moving cylinder (cutting machines) or a complex polygon (for punching machines). As a direct application of the technique results in poor performance, a spatial subdivision has been used to increase the performance.