The research objective of this award is to investigate new geometric manufacturability/machinability analysis techniques that will leverage the massive computational capabilities of commodity computer graphics hardware to generate real-time feedback to designers. We intend to provide designers with tools to evaluate geometric machinability during the detailed design phase. Instead of operating on the continuous-space solid modeling representations of geometry, our techniques will function in the discretized domain thus simplifying calculations and reducing numerical errors. These methods will exploit the capabilities of graphical processing units (GPUs) to handle the large data-sets which occur when using discrete domain methods. The result will be a collection of various machinability queries implemented as specialized filters that will act on tessellated models of the parts (commonly used for three dimensional display). Manufacturability evaluation will consist of viewing the free-form surfaces with the appropriate filters within the modified graphics pipeline.
If successful, this research will result in manufacturability evaluation pipelines analogous to the standard graphics pipeline which will be integrated into contemporary CAD systems for real-time geometric machinability evaluations. Designers will be able to switch between the standard graphics display and the machinability evaluation display to visually identify problem areas in the design during detailed design. As part of the educational plan and outreach, we will develop visualization tools that will be used in courses to improve students' understanding of geometric machinability. These plug-ins will be used in an undergraduate course in computer aided design and in K-12 outreach programs. Promising undergraduate students from computer science (as programmers) and mechanical engineering (test part developers) will be recruited through the Research Scholars Program (RSP) using REU funding. Broader societal impact is addressed through the effect this research will have on maintaining the competitiveness of US product designers in the global market.
