FEATURE CONGLOMERATOR: HELPING USERS IDENTIFY COST EFFECTIVE FEATURE INTERPERTATIONS

摘要

Feature Conglomerator is a manufacturing planning tool for use in 3 and 5 axis prismatic CNC machining domains. Feature extractors typically have many choices (i.e. interpretations) of how they may subdivide complex volumes into component features. Unfortunately, it may be difficult for the feature extractor to identify the interpretation which will result in the best manufacturing plan. The basic assumption behind this work is that much of the information needed to identify the best feature interpretation is not available during feature extraction. However, it does become available during manufacturing planning. Thus, if the initial features identified can be adjusted and refined during manufacturing planning, interpretation decisions can be better informed. This approach can be contrasted to that of Chang, which also refines features during manufacturing planning, in that this work is based on an information needs analysis to determine the most strategic time at which to make feature refinement decisions. This approach further blurs the line between feature extraction and process planning to make better informed feature interpretation decisions.