Toolpath planning process for conductive materials
AssigneePalo Alto Research Center Incorporated
InventorGregory Burton
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of generating a tool path for an additive manufacturing process, the tool path having an input polygon for a thick region, and an input path for a wire region. The method includes offsetting the input polygon by a minimum step over distance, creating a set of contour parallel offset lines, computing path segments from a medial axis transform of the input polygon, computing a dilation of the medial axis path by a radius approximately half the step over distance, producing a dilated medial axis, clipping the contour parallel offset paths by the medial axis path, producing, and recursively connect the medial axis paths with the clipped contour parallel paths.
Claims12
A computer-implemented method of generating a tool path for an additive manufacturing process, the tool path having an input polygon for a thick region, and an input path for a wire region, the method comprising:
- offsetting the input polygon by a minimum step over distance, creating a set of contour parallel offset lines;
- computing path segments from a medial axis transform of the input polygon;
- computing a dilation of the medial axis path by a radius approximately half the step over distance, producing a dilated medial axis;
- clipping the contour parallel offset paths by the medial axis path, producing clipped contour parallel paths;
- and
- recursively connect the medial axis paths with the clipped contour parallel paths.
A computer-implemented method of generating a zig-zag tool path for an additive manufacturing process, the tool path having an input polygon for a thick region, and an input path for a wire region, the method comprising:
- offsetting the input polygon by a minimum step over distance, creating a set of contour parallel offset lines;
- computing path segments from a medial axis transform of the input polygon;
- computing a dilation of the medial axis path by a radius approximately half the step over distance, producing a dilated medial axis;
- connecting paths that lie in a same direction to form a spiraling pattern;
- clipping the contour parallel offset paths by the medial axis path, producing clipped contour parallel paths;
- and
- recursively connecting the medial axis paths with the clipped contour parallel paths.
A computer-implemented method of generating a contour parallel tool path for an additive manufacturing process, the tool path having an input polygon for a thick region, and an input path for a wire region, the method comprising:
- offsetting the input polygon by a minimum step over distance, creating a set of contour parallel offset lines;
- computing path segments from a medial axis transform of the input polygon;
- computing a dilation of the medial axis path by a radius approximately half the step over distance, producing a dilated medial axis;
- clipping the contour parallel offset paths by the medial axis path, producing clipped contour parallel paths;
- and
- recursively connecting the medial axis paths with the clipped contour parallel paths such that only paths that are within a threshold distance of each other are connected.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.