Meshing operation for representing a 3D printed object
AssigneeMarkforged, Inc.
InventorJeffrey Lee Selden
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for generating a more accurate mesh that represents a 3D printed part based on a model includes slicing the model into layers and identifying an infill-wall boundary and an exterior-interior boundary of each layer of the model. Layers of the model may be identified as critical by iterative comparison with adjacent layers. An interior voxel mesh may be constructed based on common two-dimensional reference grids imposed on the critical layers. The interior voxel mesh may be augmented to an augmented mesh and then extended to a protomesh. The protomesh may be extruded to construct the final mesh, which may be analyzed by finite element analysis. The part may be 3D printed based on the layers output by the slicing operation.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- providing a model of a three-dimensional (3D) part;
- slicing the model into multiple layers;
- identifying an infill-wall boundary and an exterior-interior boundary of each layer of the model;
- identifying a first layer of the multiple layers as a first critical layer;
- examining a second layer of the model and a third layer of the model, the second layer of the model above the first layer of the model at least a predetermined minimum number of layers, the third layer adjacent to and above the second layer, the second and third layers examined to determine if a difference in a dimension of the perimeter of the second layer and the third layer is above a predetermined threshold value;
- imposing a common two-dimensional reference grid on each critical layer, each two-dimensional reference grid made up of grid squares;
- constructing an interior voxel mesh of the model, the interior voxel mesh including a plurality of voxels;
- augmenting the interior voxel mesh to construct an augmented mesh;
- extending the augmented mesh to construct a protomesh, the protomesh having an exterior surface;
- extruding the exterior surface of the protomesh to construct a final mesh;
- 3D printing the 3D part represented by the model according to the multiple layers of the slicing operation;
- and
- conducting a finite element analysis of the 3D printed part using the final mesh.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.