Consumption of material in additive manufacture
AssigneeStratasys, Inc.
InventorsAvraham TEKEN, Boris BELOCON
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for carrying out additive manufacture while regulating material consumption, comprises making a digital representation of at least part of an object for printing, the representation comprising a plurality of voxels, and then identifying voxels which are flexible in respect of being able to consist of any one of at least two available materials. A balanced material consumption policy is then used to choose between the available materials so as to ensure that as far as possible, different materials are evenly used and wastage is minimized. Finally the object is printed with the selected materials.
Claims15
A method for additive manufacturing comprising:
- obtaining a material consumption policy;
- obtaining a digital representation of a three-dimensional (3D) structure, said digital representation comprising a plurality of voxels;
- identifying, in said 3D structure, defined regions consisting of non-versatile voxels;
- identifying, in said 3D structure, undefined regions consisting of versatile voxels;
- selecting a consumable material for each of said non-versatile voxels;
- selecting a consumable material for each of said versatile voxels according to said material consumption policy;
- and
- printing said 3D structure, voxel by voxel, using said digital representation and said material selected for each of said plurality of voxels, wherein said material consumption policy comprises selecting a consumable material for a versatile voxel so as to evenly balance the consumption between the different consumable materials during the course of manufacturing.
Additive manufacture apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of consumable materials;
- a printing control unit, the printing control unit comprising:
- a representation storage unit configured to hold a digital representation of a three-dimensional (3D) structure comprising a plurality of voxels;
- a versatility identification unit configured to identify defined regions consisting of non-versatile voxels and undefined regions consisting of versatile voxels, wherein a consumable material for said versatile voxels may be selected from more than one of said consumable materials;
- a policy storage unit configured to hold a material consumption policy;
- and
- a material selector unit configured to select a material among the plurality of consumable materials for each of said non-versatile voxels and for each of said versatile voxels according to said material consumption policy;
- and
- a printing unit connected to said printing control unit, and controllable to print said 3D structure, voxel by voxel, based on said digital representation and said materials selected by said material selector unit, wherein said material consumption policy comprises selecting a consumable material for a versatile voxel so as to evenly balance the consumption between the different consumable materials during the course of manufacture.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.