Direct Digital Design and Manufacturing from Massive Point-Cloud Data

Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach that can enable product geometric design and its subsequent manufacturing applications directly from massive point-cloud data, without the usual laborious CAD model reconstruction. We term this approach direct digital design and manufacturing (D3M). This approach is based on a moving leastsquares (MLS) formulation that defines a continuous surface directly from a set of points. We derive formulae for differential geometric analysis of the MLS surface based on its implicit form. From the resulting closed curvature formulae, we develop a set of error-bounded, adaptive intersecting algorithms that can intersect the MLS surface with lines, planes, polygonal meshes, and NURBS surfaces. These algorithms have been successfully applied in applications ranging from product shape design, CNC machining to rapid prototyping.