Patent US 6,120,171

A solid modeler is provided which is specifically tailored for the material removal process associated with milling procedure. The solid modeler permits a part to be designed using only machinable profiles thereby constraining the designer to real world machinable operations. The method utilized by this solid modeler allows design manipulation of the edges and curves of a very general feature profile, thereby representing the milling process with the same degree of flexibility that the actual milling process has, and provides a means to create and store for use in the generation of other parts any combination of 2D and 3D features.