Boundary extraction algorithm for cutting area detection

In sculptured surface machining, many machining operations require cutting areas to be expressed in terms of a boundary representation. To extract cut ting areas from a sculptured surface, this paper employs a regular grid mod el (Z-map model) and presents a procedure extracting areas from a Z-map mod el. The extracted areas may correspond to various machining features, depen ding on what the Z-map stores, such as curvature (fillet, uncut area), slop e (wall, floor) and Z-values (contour). The core of the procedure is a 'bou ndary extraction algorithm' extracting boundaries and identifying the inclu sion relationships among the boundaries from a binary image. The time compl exity of the boundary extraction algorithm is O(n), where n is the number o f runs. In terms of its time complexity and simplicity, the proposed algori thm has advantages over the prior ones. Empirical tests show the performanc e of the proposed algorithm. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese rved.