An Improved Method and System for Rapid and Efficient Three-Dimensional Printing
Background
A novel 3D toolpath generation paradigm that leverages local feature independence in the target object. In contrast to existing FFF slicing methods which print an object layer by layer, our algorithm provides a means to print local features of an object without being constrained to a single layer. The key benefit of our approach is a tremendous reduction in “extrusionless travel,” in which the printer must move between features without performing any extrusion. We show on a benchmark of 409 objects that our method can yield substantial savings in extrusionless travel, 34% on average, that can directly translate to a reduction in total manufacturing time.
Applications
Provides novel method and system of three-dimensional printing using fused deposition modeling (FDM) that minimizes print time by using a novel toolpath-planning algorithm. The invention can be used with any 3D printer setup that allows FDM.
Current Work
We are currently exploring improved methods for 3D aware planning. In particular, we have taken inspiration from the cases in which our current method actually increases extrusionless travel. These cases demonstrate that while our greedy method works well in the vast majority of inputs, there is still improvement to be gained by improving the modeling of spatial separation in local features of the input model.
Inventors
Samuel Lensgraf
Intellectual Property
Available For
Exclusive License in a Field
Non-exclusive License
Scientific Collaboration
