General Support-Effective Decomposition for Multi-Directional 3D Printing
Published in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2019
Abstract: We present a method for fabricating general models with multi-directional 3-D printing systems by printing different model regions along with different directions. The core of our method is a support-effective volume decomposition algorithm that minimizes the area of the regions with large overhangs. A beam-guided searching algorithm with manufacturing constraints determines the optimal volume decomposition, which is represented by a sequence of clipping planes. While current approaches require manually assembling separate components into a final model, our algorithm allows for directly printing the final model in a single pass. It can also be applied to models with loops and handles. A supplementary algorithm generates special supporting structures for models where supporting structures for large overhangs cannot be eliminated. We verify the effectiveness of our method using two hardware systems: a Cartesian-motion-based system and an angular-motion-based system. A variety of 3-D models have been successfully fabricated on these systems.
Recommended citation: Chenming Wu, Chengkai Dai, Guoxin Fang, Yong-Jin Liu, Charlie C. L. Wang. General Support-Effective Decomposition for Multi-Directional 3D Printing. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.599-610, 2020.