STL mesh based laser scan planning system for complex freeform surfaces

STL 메쉬를 이용한 자유곡면의 레이저 측정경로 생성 연구

Laser scanners are getting used more and more in reverse engineering and inspection. For CNC-driven laser scanners, it is important to automate the scanning operations to improve the accuracy of capture point data and to reduce scanning time in industry. However, there are few research works on laser scan planning system. In addition, it is difficult to directly analyze multi-patched freeform models. In this paper, we propose an STL (Stereolithography) mesh based laser scan planning system for complex freeform surfaces. The scan planning system consists of three steps and it is assumed that the CAD model of the part exists. Firstly, the surface model is approximated into STL meshes. From the mesh model, normal vector of each node point is estimated. Second, scan directions and regions are determined through the region growing method. Also, scan paths are generated by calculating the minimum-bounding rectangle of points that can be scanned in each scan direction. Finally, the generated scan directions and paths are validated by checking optical constraints and the collision between the laser probe and the part to be scanned.