A method and apparatus able to quickly and accurately automatically produce machining
programs for complicated shapes of products without being affected by the level
of knowledge or experience of the operator. A cutting-condition determination processing
unit (20) of an automatic programming apparatus (10) specifies required
standard cutting condition data from the type of material and the types of processes
designated by an input unit (12) in a cutting condition data table (24)
stored in a storage unit (18), specifies the tool data corresponding to
the types of tools designated by the input unit in the tool data table (26)
stored in the storage unit, and determines the cutting conditions relating to the
type of material and the tools from the standard cutting condition data and the
tool data. A program-generation processing unit (22) specifies a program-generation
algorithm corresponding to the designated process in an algorithm table (28)
stored in the storage unit and generates machining programs based on the determined
cutting conditions in accordance with the program-generation algorithm.
