Iso-parametric tool path planning for point clouds

The computational consuming and non-robust reconstruction from point clouds to either meshes or spline surfaces motivates the direct tool path planning for point clouds. In this paper, a novel approach for planning iso-parametric tool path from a point cloud is presented. The planning depends on the parameterization of point clouds. Accordingly, a conformal map is employed to build the parameterization which leads to a significant simplification of computing tool path parameters and boundary conformed paths. Then, Tool path is generated through linear interpolation with the forward and side step computed against specified chord deviation and scallop height, respectively. Experimental results are given to illustrate effectiveness of the proposed methods.