2 Basic Geometry for CNC Machining
2.1 Coordinate systems on CNC machine tools
Types of coordinate systems
Coordinate systems enable the exact description of all points on a work plane or room. Basically there are
two types of coordinate systems:
· Cartesian coordinate system and
· polar coordinate system.
Cartesian coordinate system
A Cartesian coordinate system, also called rectangular coordinate system includes for the exact description
of the points
· two coordinate axes (two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system) or also
· three coordinate axes (three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system),
located vertically to each other.
In the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, e.g. in the X, Y coordinate system, each point on the
plane is explicitly defined (see figure 15). The distance from the Y axis is called the X coordinate and the
distance from the X axis is called Y axis. These coordinates can either have a positive or a negative sign.