CNC Automatic Feature Recognition

The starting geometry that the part is machined from is an essential ingredient in machining time and cost calculation. While the starting geometry is set by the bounding box that fully encloses the part, the part may be exported from a CAD file or an assembly arrangement with a custom location that is not always aligned with global axes, which means non-optimal bounding box and, as a result, an increased manufacturing effort.

With our SDK we find and reorient the part to an optimal position to avoid such a negative impact.

CNC SDK is capable of recognizing a number of manufacturing features out of a 3D design such as lathe bores, lathe cylindrical, taper, contour and flat surfaces, threads, blind and through holes, countersinks, counterbores, filets and chamfers, deburred corners, prismatic cavities and more.

• Pocketing
• Facing
• Slotting
• Chamfering
• Boring

Ideally, a part is machined using a single tool over the entire contour, but this is not always possible. Designs optimized for tooling can have a significant positive impact on lead times — every time a tool is changed during machining, it adds to the lead time. With the volume decomposition feature of CNC SDK you can know the negative volumes to be subtracted out of the stock and their properties which you can leverage to work on a tooling plan.

It’s rare for a CNC machine to be able to fully fabricate a part using a single setup, but each setup required to machine a part adds time to the overall process, and so, reducing the number of setups takes a great role in reducing lead times. With CNC SDK you can predict a number of required setups and communicate a better 3D design with your team, or simply adjust a pricing algorithm of your MaaS platform.

CNC SDK outputs the result of CNC feature recognition for a given assembly in the form of a human readable JSON file where each feature is given with a dedicated section.

Besides, for seamless integration with web platforms and to provide direct feedback to the designer or engineer, CNC SDK provides glTF outcome with an assembly scene structure and color code of recognized features.