Multi-axis Milling for Micro-texturing

Surface texture is an important aspect in enhancing the aesthetic and tactile qualities of products as well as their mechanical properties. Surface texture is generated over a wide area to produce various characteristics such as patterns of tiles, annular rings, or skin. A rough texture on a product surface is generally obtained by etching or sandblasting, which produces a roughness of several hundred micrometers. However, these techniques have issues related to repeatability and environmental pollution. They also require expert control such as masking of the product surface. As well, automation of the process is difficult. Since current high-precision milling machines can machine products at the nanometer level, the resolution of machining exceeds that achieved by etching or sandblasting. This indicates that machining could be used to generate surface texture. However, patterns produced by such high-precision machines consist of only simple shapes like lines; it is difficult to produce the complex patterns required for surface textures. Therefore, computer graphics (CG) systems that are capable of designing surface textures and mapping geometrical surfaces cannot be used in production. Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems are not optimized for complex microfabrication applications such as the generation of a tool path. To address these shortcomings, we developed a surface texture generation system and used it to produce machined samples.