  This paper presents a digital simulation method for the hobbing process of
cylindrical gears. Based on the gear generation principle, taking the
professional software as the tool, the problem of virtual hobbing simulation on
involute helical gears was studied, and the virtual hobbing simulation of
hobbing on the whole gear was completed by using macros of CATIA V5. The
validity of this method was validated by analyzing the tooth surface accuracy
error of the model which was below 0.001 mm between the virtual tooth surface
and the theoretical tooth surface and the possible factors that affected the
tooth surface accuracy during manufacturing were also carried on the
discussion. It offers a fictitious three-D platform for studying the principle
of manufacture errors of a gear-cutting machine as well as the finite element
analysis between the ideal tooth surface and the erroneous tooth surface.
