[step-manufacturing] Minutes of third conference call

[Martin Hardwick]

The conference call was held on Wednesday November 12th

Attendees
---------------
Matthew Lloyd, CCAT
Martin Hardwick, STEP Tools, Inc.
Mikael Hedlind, KTH
Magnus Lundgren, KTH
Bengt Olsson, Sandvik
Fred Proctor, NIST
Ian Stroud, EPFL
Xun Xu, University of Auckland
Leon Xu, Boeing


Apologies for absence
--------------------------------
Gary Hargreaves, Mastercam
Larry Maggiano, Mitutoyo
Brian Kindilein, CCAT
Sid Venkatesh, Boeing
David Odendahl, Boeing
Alain Brail, AlBavis


The two possible test parts were further evaluated. The Sandvik Demo 
6 part has the advantage of being faster to machine and has more 
scope for testing plunge milling. However, the Mastercam test part 
has the advantage of being developed by a CAM vendor. Issues were 
discovered when reading the STEP file for the Mastercam test part 
into other CAD systems. The STEP model describes a surface model not 
a solid model and does not follow the "material on the right" rule 
used by most systems to distinguish between face boundaries and face holes.

We agreed to ask Mastercam for a STEP solid model of the part and to 
evaluate the machining time for their second candidate part.

The three STEP-NC meetings scheduled for 2009 were discussed. T24 
would like to support all three meetings by giving demonstrations of 
live and simulated STEP-NC machining.

a. Boeing/Vancouver May 14-15 & 18-19.
b. U. Bath in the UK week of September 25
c. U. Auckland in NZ December 7 & 9-11

We agreed that the STEP-NC model for machine tools should be a major 
focus for these demonstrations. We would like to show the machine 
tool model being used to simulate machining of the new test part on 
at least two of the participants machines. A draft book chapter on 
the STEP-NC machine tool model was reviewed. There was agreement that 
it should be used as the starting point for the new simulators.

STEP Tools will begin work on enhancing the STEP-NC Explorer so that 
it can simulate using the Machine Tool model. Fred Proctor will 
contact the University of Bath to request a copy of the latest 
EXPRESS model and to see if they would like to collaborate on the 
demonstrations.

In order to make simulations we will need to describe the kinematics 
of the machine tool and we will need STEP models of the moving parts 
and any other parts that might be impacted during machining. KTH 
already has a STEP model of a 3 axis machine that we can use for 
preliminary evaluations. NIST will investigate making a CAD model of 
its machine.

The next conference call will be on Wednesday November 26.

Action items
------------------
1.   Martin to ask Mastercam for a better STEP model of the mold part
2.   Martin to ask Mastercam for STEP model of their other part
3.   Bengt to make STEP model of Demo6 part
4.   Magnus to share STEP model of 3 axis machine
5.   Fred to ask Aydin for latest EXPRESS machine tool model
6.   Xun to ask Aydin if material on machine tool model can be put 
onto ftp site
7.   Xun to update scenario diagram to show simulation
8.   Fred to ask NIST CAD guy to make model of NIST machine
9.   Martin to enhance STEP-NC explorer so that it can simulate 
machine tool models
10. Bengt to investigate interface between ISO 13399 and the machine tool model
11. Sid to ask Autocad to participate in the demonstration.
12. Martin to make figure describing the data inputs (AP-203, ISO 
13399, APT, MIMIC, STL etc).