2D AUTOCAD GEOMETRIC DATA EXTRACTION AND POST- PROCESSING FOR NUMERICAL CONTROL

Abstract

In this paper, a method of extracting 2D geometric data from AutoCAD drawing and post-
processing for Numerical Control (NC) is presented. Geometric data already available in
the Drawing Interchange Files (DXF) can be utilized to accurately and economically
prepare part programs for controlling NC/CNC machine tools. AutoCAD, being general
purpose software, stores its geometric data in a form that cannot be directly applied for
automatic generation of Numerical Control (NC) codes. The way around the discrepancy
between the structure of a drawing database (DXF files) and the information requirement
for part programming is addressed in this work. NC programming of a test component
drawn in AutoCAD is also presented.