Printing system for printing on a substantially planar surface of a 3D-object and a method for printing thereof
AssigneeOcé Holding B.V.
InventorCatherine M. H. A. Le Maître
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A printing system for printing on a substantially planar surface of a 3D-object includes a printer for printing on the planar surface of the 3D-object and a controller configured to control printing of the printer. The printing system further includes a mask generation module configured to generate a mask having the shape of the planar surface from a 3D-model of the 3D-object and to provide the controller with the mask to prevent printing outside the planar surface according to the mask.
Claims5
A printing system for printing on a substantially planar surface of a 3D-object, the printing system comprising:
- a computer programmed to function as:
- a mask generation module configured to generate a mask having a shape of the planar surface from a 3D-model of the 3D-object from a mesh model defined by a plurality of 2D-faces by selection of 2D-faces out of the plurality of 2D-faces, said selected 2D-faces having a corresponding normal with respect to a reference normal of a reference 2D-face arranged in an area of the mesh model corresponding to the planar surface of the 3D-object;
- and
- a controller configured to control printing of the planar surface of the 3D-object according to the generated mask from the mask generation module;
- and
- a printer configured to print on the planar surface of the 3D-object under a control of the controller, said control preventing the printer from printing outside said planar surface according to the mask.
A method for printing on a planar surface of a 3D-object, comprising:
- generating a mask of a substantially planar surface of a 3D-object, said method comprising the step of generating the mask from a 3D-model of the 3D-object such that said mask has the shape of the planar surface,
- wherein the 3D-model of the 3D-object object is a mesh model defined by a plurality of 2D-faces, and the step of generating the mask comprises the sub-steps of:
- generating a reference normal vector of a reference 2D-face arranged in an area of the mesh model corresponding to the planar surface of the 3D-object;
- generating a normal vector of a 2D-face of the plurality of 2D-faces of said mesh model to yield a normal vector;
- and
- selecting the 2D-face by comparison of the normal vector with the reference normal vector;
- and
- using the generated mask to limit printing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.