Abstract: A method of testing a machine tool comprising processing circuitry arranged to control a material remover, in which the method comprises: a) generating a test path to be processed by the processing circuitry to cause the material remover of the machine tool to move along a predetermined path; b) causing the processing circuitry to execute the test path and move the material remover along the test path; c) timing at least one of the performance of the processing circuitry and the movement of the material remover along the test path to generate machine tool timings; and d) using the machine tool timings to set limits which are arranged to subsequently be used when cutting paths are generated for the machine tool for which the test path has been generated.

Abstract: A method of generating a plurality of cutting paths for a material remover, which generates a set of offsets from the perimeter of the model for each corner region of the model; creates, for each offset within each of the sets, a subset of cutting paths based upon each offset with each cutting path within the subset separated from a neighbouring cutting path within the subset by a stepover, wherein a portion of a first cutting path in one of the subsets has a distance of greater than the stepover to the last cutting path in a previous subset; joins cutting paths from within a subset at each corner region forming complete cutting paths causing a material remover to move between corner regions; and creates backfill cutting paths used to remove material from between subsets of cutting paths in the portion greater than the stepover between the subsets.