Abstract
Presented in this paper is a CPO tool-path linking procedure optimizing technological objectives, such as dealing with islands (positive and negative) and minimizing tool retractions, drilling holes and slotting. Main features of the proposed algorithm are as follows; 1) a data structure, called a 'TPE-net', is devised to provide information on the parent/child relationships among the tool-path-elements, 2) the number of tool retractions is minimized by a 'tool-path-element linking algorithm'fading a tour through the TPE-net, and 3) the number of drilling holes is minimized by making use of the concept of the 'free space'.