Integration of computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing using STEP data exchange standard

This paper proposes shop-floor programming system for integration of CAD and CAM for 3D prismatic parts having different features like slot, pocket, hole etc. The major modules of the proposed methodology are (i) Modeling module (ii) Interpreter module (iii)Automatic Feature Recognition (AFR) module (iv)Process planning module (v) Part Program generation module. In this paper, an object oriented approach has been used to model the 3D prismatic part in VC++ using ST-Developer software package. The part model is based on STEP AP 203, the resulting part 21 file is interpreted and converted in to a Parasolid, which is given has an input to the AFR module where the manufacturing view software is used to recognize the features automatically. By using workingstep list obtained from AFR module, machining time is calculated for each operation and an automatic process sequence has been generated with alternative sequence of operations having different machining times. The sequence which is having lowest machining time is given input to the commercial CAM system to generate part program.