Conclusion

We propose toolpaths with tolerances as a unifying approach to dealing with tolerance issues across design, manufacturing and inspection. Not only does this permit us to answer questions concerning design and manufacturing processes, but also gives a way to determine places in the process and on the part where sensing is useful to ensuring that tolerances are met. We have developed algorithms based on interval splines and implementation is currently underway. We consider our major contributions to be:

• Proposing inspection strategies based on manufacturing knowledge, and

• Showing that lower-level manufacturing features such as tool paths provide a unified framework to analyze tolerances in design and manufacture of machined parts.