NC tool path generation of arbitrarily shaped pockets

In machining die cavities or mechanical parts, we often encounter the needs to remove a material within a given boundary. Even though this pocket cutting capability has been implemented in many NC packages, most of them can handle convex shaped pockets bounded by curves of limited types and numbers. In this work, a procedure has been developed to machine pockets of a free surface bounded by lines, circular arcs and free curves. Also, the cutter location data is computed directly without using iterative method for better computational efficiency.