Abstract
Lasting machines for shoe manufacturing are continuously developed with the aid of automation and CAM(Computer Aided Manufacturing). Although automation and CAM techniques have tremendously reduced the labor in shoe manufacturing, there still remain some parts manufactured by experts. In order to enhance the capability and efficiency of machines for labor-free shoe manufacturing, CAD data of a shoe last is essential. While CAD datarization takes the fundamental role in the shoe design and manufacturing, there has been little research for the CAD datarization of a shoe last. In this paper, a new procedure for CAD datarization of a shoe last using finite element patches and a tension sl)line method is proposed for application to shoe manufacturing machines. The outer line of a shoe-last sole is interpolated by a tension spline method and bonding lines are extracted from the shoe CAD data. Data set for a control algorithm of the tasting machine can be produced from the CAD data.
