Patent ID: 8219230
Filing Date: 2012-07-10
Classification: B29C,G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for evaluating ease of manufacturability for a three-dimensional injection molded plastic computer-aided-design (CAD) model, comprising: generating, by a first program module running on a computing machine, a likely pulling direction for the CAD model using a plurality of heuristics; identifying, by the first program module, core, cavity and undercut regions in the CAD model based on the likely pulling direction; computing, by a second program module running on the computing machine, wall thickness parameters of the CAD model and wall thickness parameters of a corresponding mold using geometry information of the CAD model; recognizing, by a third program module running on the computing machine, form features in the CAD model; computing, by the third program module, parameters of the form features in the CAD model; storing in a feature database the wall thickness parameters, the form features, and the parameters of the form features; and applying, by a fourth program module running on the computing machine, a plurality of manufacturability rules stored in a rule database, the manufacturability rules being based on the form features and the parameters of the form features, thereby evaluating ease of manufacturability of the CAD model.