US 10,259,164 B2Granted

Methods and apparatus for 3D printing of point cloud data

OwnerChristoph Bader, Dominik Kolb +2inventors

InventorsChristoph Bader, Dominik Kolb, Neri Oxman, James Weaver

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Abstract

An unorganized point cloud may be created by an optical 3D scanner that scans a physical object, or by computer simulation. The point cloud may be converted into binary raster layers, which encode material deposition instructions for a multi-material 3D printer. In many cases, this conversion—from point cloud to binary raster files—is achieved without producing a 3D voxel representation and without producing a boundary representation of the object to be printed. The conversion may involve spatial queries to find nearby points, filtering material properties of the found points, looking up material mixing ratios, and dithering to produce binary raster files. These raster files may be sent to a multi-material 3D printer to control fabrication of an object. A user interface may display a preview of the object to be printed, and may accept user input to create or modify a point cloud.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

(a) converting an unorganized point cloud into a spatial data structure, such that data points in the spatial data structure are not constrained to be located at grid points of a regularly-spaced 3D grid;
(b) computationally dividing the spatial data structure into layers, and computationally dividing each of the layers into pixels;
(c) performing, for each respective pixel in each respective layer
(i) a spatial query to try to find a set of data points, which set of points consists of not more than a specified number of points that are nearest in distance to the respective pixel and are within a specified distance threshold from the respective pixel, and
(ii) computations to determine a material mixing ratio for the respective pixel;
(d) calculating, for each respective layer, a set of binary raster files that encode material deposition instructions;
(e) generating, based on binary raster files for the layers, printer instructions that control a multi-material 3D printer;
and
(f) using the multi-material 3D printer to physically fabricate a physical object, in accordance with the printer instructions;
wherein the converting, the dividing into layers, the dividing into pixels, and the performing (i) do not include generating any boundary representation of the object and (ii) do not include generating any 3D voxel representation of the object.

7 more elements

A system comprising

(a) a multi-material 3D printer;
and
(b) one or more non-transitory computer readable media, with instructions encoded thereon that instruct one or more computers to execute an algorithm that includes the following steps:
(i) converting an unorganized point cloud into a spatial data structure, such that data points in the spatial data structure are not constrained to be located at grid points of a regularly-spaced 3D grid,
(ii) computationally dividing the spatial data structure into layers, and computationally dividing each of the layers into pixels,
(iii) performing, for each respective pixel in each respective layer
(A) a spatial query to try to find a set of data points, which set of points consists of not more than a specified number of points that are nearest in distance to the respective pixel and are within a specified distance threshold from the respective pixel, and
(B) computations to determine a material mixing ratio for the respective pixel,
(iv) calculating, for each respective layer, a set of binary raster files that encode material deposition instructions, and
(v) generating, based on binary raster files for the layers, printer instructions for the multi-material 3D printer to physically fabricate a physical object;
wherein the algorithm does not include, as part of specific steps, generating any boundary representation of the object or generating any 3D voxel representation of the object, the specific steps being the converting, the dividing into layers, the dividing into pixels, and the performing.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/628,635Filed 20 Jun 2017 · us provisional application
Priority: 22 Jun 2016
Published: US 2017/0368755 A128 Dec 2017
Granted: 16 Apr 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

B29C 64/386
Auxiliary operations or equipment: data acquisition or data processing for additive manufacturing
B33Y 10/00
Processes of additive manufacturing
B33Y 50/02
Data acquisition or data processing for additive manufacturing: for controlling or regulating additive manufacturing processes
G05B 19/4099
Characterised by using design data to control NC machines, e.g. CAD/CAM: surface or curve machining, making three-dimensional [3D] objects, e.g.…