Generation of continuous hybrid zig-zag and contour paths for 3D printing
Authors: Gorka Gómez Carles Creus
Date: 01.04.2022
International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology
Abstract
The generation of the printing paths is a decisive step in additive manufacturing (AM). There is a variety of patterns that offer different characteristics, but those that are strictly continuous become especially relevant in certain types of AM by extrusion, with materials like bioinks, carbon or clays, since they do not allow the retraction of the material and travelling movements result in the generation of artifacts. In this work, we present (1) a method that generates continuous paths to fill 2D polygons with a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with any direction and line separation, which extends an algorithm that decomposes the 2D area to be filled into convex areas, overcoming its limitations to generate less subpolygons in certain cases, (2) a method to join the subpolygon trajectories such that a continuous path that fills the whole polygon is obtained, and (3) a publicly available dataset containing (a) a set of 2D polygons that are relevant to test the performance of the algorithms and (b) the results of filling those polygons with our methodology. Results show that the developed methods produce satisfactory results for the polygons contained in the evaluation dataset, including a couple of demonstrations of real 3D prints with the generated trajectories. Further work is needed to extend the methodology to produce suitable solutions for polygons with curved holes.
BIB_text
title = {Generation of continuous hybrid zig-zag and contour paths for 3D printing},
journal = {International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology},
pages = {7025-7040},
volume = {119},
keywds = {
Additive manufacturing · Continuous path · Polygon decomposition · Geometry decomposition · 3D printing
}
abstract = {
The generation of the printing paths is a decisive step in additive manufacturing (AM). There is a variety of patterns that offer different characteristics, but those that are strictly continuous become especially relevant in certain types of AM by extrusion, with materials like bioinks, carbon or clays, since they do not allow the retraction of the material and travelling movements result in the generation of artifacts. In this work, we present (1) a method that generates continuous paths to fill 2D polygons with a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with any direction and line separation, which extends an algorithm that decomposes the 2D area to be filled into convex areas, overcoming its limitations to generate less subpolygons in certain cases, (2) a method to join the subpolygon trajectories such that a continuous path that fills the whole polygon is obtained, and (3) a publicly available dataset containing (a) a set of 2D polygons that are relevant to test the performance of the algorithms and (b) the results of filling those polygons with our methodology. Results show that the developed methods produce satisfactory results for the polygons contained in the evaluation dataset, including a couple of demonstrations of real 3D prints with the generated trajectories. Further work is needed to extend the methodology to produce suitable solutions for polygons with curved holes.
}
doi = {10.1007/s00170-021-08418-z},
date = {2022-04-01},
}
