Additive Manufacturing Control based on Displaced Signed Distance Fields

A computer device for generating manufacturing data for an additive manufacturing device, the additive manufacturing device having a building space that is discretized into virtual voxels, the computer device comprising:

• memory;
• and
• at least one processor configured to execute instructions from the memory, wherein the instructions include:
• receiving a voxel-based approximation of a surface of a three-dimensional object, wherein the voxel-based approximation includes multiple voxels;
• determining, for each of at least a non-empty subset of the voxels, a signed distance value describing a distance between each voxel and at least one point defined by the voxel-based approximation, wherein the signed distance value of the voxel is determined based on a displacement value describing a topographic characteristic of the voxel-based approximation;
• generating manufacturing data by selecting voxels at which material should be printed to produce the object, wherein the selection is performed based on the signed distance values of the voxels;
• and
• outputting the manufacturing data to the additive manufacturing device.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions, the instructions including:

• receiving a voxel-based approximation of a surface of a three-dimensional object, wherein the voxel-based approximation includes multiple voxels;
• determining, for each voxel of a non-empty subset of the voxels, a signed distance value describing a distance between the voxel and at least one point defined by the voxel-based approximation, wherein the signed distance value of the voxel is determined based on a displacement value describing a topographic characteristic of the voxel-based approximation;
• and
• selecting voxels at which material should be added to produce the object, wherein the selection is performed based on the signed distance values of the voxels.