Abstract
The view dependency of typical spatial-partitioning based NC simulation methods is overcome by polygon rendering technique that generates polygons to represent the workpiece, thus enabling dynamic viewing transformations without reconstruction of the entire data structure. However, the polygon rendering technique still has difficulty in realizing real-time simulation due to unsatisfactory performance of current graphics devices. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a mesh decimation method that enables rapid rendering without loss of display quality. In this paper. we proposed a new mesh decimation algorithm thor a workpiece whose shape varies dynamically. In this algorithm, the 2-map data thor a given workpiece is divided into several regions, and a triangular mesh is constructed for each region first. Then, if any region it cut by the tool, its mesh is regenerated and decimated again. Since the range of mesh decimation is confined to a few regions, the reduced polygons for rendering can be obtained rapidly. Our method enables the polygon-rendering based NC simulation to be applied to the computers equipped with a wider range of graphics cards.