Title
CurviSlicer: slightly curved slicing for 3-axis printers
Abstract
Most additive manufacturing processes fabricate objects by stacking planar layers of solidified material. As a result, produced parts exhibit a so-called staircase effect, which results from sampling slanted surfaces with parallel planes. Using thinner slices reduces this effect, but it always remains visible where layers almost align with the input surfaces. In this research we exploit the ability of some additive manufacturing processes to deposit material slightly out of plane to dramatically reduce these artifacts. We focus in particular on the widespread Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology, since most printers in this category can deposit along slightly curved paths, under deposition slope and thickness constraints. Our algorithm curves the layers, making them either follow the natural slope of the input surface or on the contrary, make them intersect the surfaces at a steeper angle thereby improving the sampling quality. Rather than directly computing curved layers, our algorithm optimizes for a deformation of the model which is then sliced with a standard planar approach. We demonstrate that this approach enables us to encode all fabrication constraints, including the guarantee of generating collision-free toolpaths, in a convex optimization that can be solved using a QP solver. We produce a variety of models and compare print quality between curved deposition and planar slicing.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1145/3306346.3323022
ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)
Keywords
Field
DocType
additive manufacturing, curved slicing
Computer vision,Slicing,Planar,Artificial intelligence,Solver,Fused filament fabrication,Geometry,Convex optimization,Mathematics,Fabrication,The Intersect,Stacking
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
38
4
0730-0301
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
10
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jimmy Etienne100.34
Nicolas Ray2102052.96
Daniele Panozzo376553.06
Samuel Hornus416612.52
Charlie C. L. Wang51280100.10
Jonas Martinez6727.70
Sara McMains700.34
Marc Alexa83554182.90
Brian Wyvill91130278.50
Sylvain Lefebvre10107462.54