• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.2009-2018
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• 2001

This paper presents a region offsetting algorithm for tool-path generation. The proposed region offsetting algorithm is developed by expanding the 'PWID offset algorithm [Choi and Park, 1999]'designed to offset a simple polygon. The PWID offset algorithm has three important steps; 1) remove 'local invalid ranges'by invoking a PWID test, 2) construct a raw offset owe and 3) remove 'global invalid ranges'by finding self-intersections of the raw offset cure. To develop a region offsetting algorithm, we modified the PWID offset algorithm by expanding the concept of the 'global invalid range'in the third step. The time complexity of the proposed algorithm is approximately Ο(n), where n is the number of points, and it is free of numerical errors for practical purposes. The proposed algorithm has been implemented and tested with various real regions obtained by intersecting a sculptured surface with a plane.