Wire anchoring for co-extruded printing

A system for co-extrusion printing an object with embedded metallic wire, the system comprising:

• a data processing apparatus configured to execute memory encoding instructions to:
• receive user input including (i) a building mesh indicative of an object in which to embed metallic wire through co-extrusion printing, (ii) a settings mesh indicative of a wire region of the object where the metallic wire is to be embedded, and (iii) an anchor mesh indicative of an anchor, such that two copies of the anchor each to be printed using polymer are to support ends of the metallic wire extending outside of the object during printing;
• perform a Boolean intersection of the settings mesh and the building mesh to cut the building mesh into a wire mesh corresponding to the wire region;
• perform a subtractive mesh operation to remove geometry corresponding to the wire mesh from the building mesh to cut the building mesh into the surface mesh corresponding to a surface region of the object to be printed using polymer and a base mesh corresponding to a base region of the object separated from the surface region by the wire region, the base region to be printed using polymer;
• perform a join operation of the surface and base mesh to the wire mesh and two instances of the anchor mesh in accordance with relative positions during printing of the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the two copies of the anchor;
• generate corresponding pathing algorithms separately for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies to produce respective sets of printing paths for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies;
• determine an order for traversing the produced printing paths to ensure that the printing paths corresponding for embedding the metallic wire are traversed last;
• and
• a large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM) tool configured to:
• print, at least based on the produced printing paths and the determined order, the object with the metallic wire partially embedded therein and the anchor copies that support the ends of the metallic wire.