Part segmentation by superquadric fitting-a new approach towards automatic design of cooling system for plastic injection mould

The cooling system of an injection mould plays an important role in determining the productivity of the moulding process and the quality of the moulded part. Previous research has mainly focused on the analysis and optimization of cooling systems, but techniques that can be used for the automatic design of cooling systems have not been well investigated. In a previous project, we developed an automatic system that can generate preliminary designs for cooling systems. A key component of that automatic system is an algorithm that segments a part with a complex shape into simpler shape portions to facilitate the subsequent design synthesis process. This segmentation method, based on a feature recognition technique, has limited geometric coverage. In this research, a new method of part segmentation with an extended geometric coverage is developed. This method first estimates the regions where segmentation boundaries exist, and then refines the regions until they can be used to segment the part into separate portions. When this new part segmentation algorithm is integrated into an automatic design system, the system can generate cooling system designs for a larger class of plastic parts. © 2006 Springer-Verlag London Limited.