Extrusion-based additive manufacturing: method and 3D printing system

A method for enabling an extrusion-based additive manufacturing (AM) three-dimensional (3D) printing system to handle individual 3D parts of a print job comprising at least two 3D parts, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing the print job that provides digital 3D representations of the at least two 3D parts;
• slicing the print job to generate a set of slices for the digital 3D representations of the at least two 3D parts, each slice of the set of slices comprising geometrical data defining respective boundaries of a respective layer of AM feedstock material that is to be deposited from a nozzle of a printing head on one of a build surface and a previously deposited layer of AM feedstock material to print each 3D part taking into account said respective boundaries;
• generating for each 3D part a respective individual set of geometrical data taking into account said geometrical data provided by each slice of the set of slices, wherein each individual set of geometrical data comprises geometrical data defining the respective boundaries of the respective layers of AM feedstock material that are to be taken into account for printing the respective 3D part;
• sending the sliced print job to an AM 3D printing system;
• optimizing the print procedure for the respective AM 3D printing system for each 3D part individually by generating for each 3D part the respective individual set of geometrical data taking into account said geometrical data provided by each slice of the set of slices and taking into account parameters of the respective AM 3D printing system;
• and
• generating an individual set of control instructions for each 3D part based on the individual set of geometrical data.