Boolean operations of STL models based on edge-facet intersection

For the data processing of the Rapid Prototyping Manufacturing, Boolean operation can offer a versatile tool for editing or modifying the STL model, adding the artificial construction, and creating the complex assistant support structure to meet the special technical requests. The topological structure of STL models was built firstly in order to obtain the neighborhood relationship among the triangular facets. The intersection test between every edge of one solid and every facet of another solid was taken to get the intersection points. According to the matching relationship of the triangle index recorded in the data structure of the intersection points, the intersection segments array and the intersection loop were traced out. Each intersected triangle was subdivided by the Constrained Delaunay Triangulations. The intersected surfaces were divided into several surface patches along the intersection loops. The inclusion prediction between the surface patch and the other solid was taken by testing whether the candidate point was inside or outside the solid region of the slice. Detecting the loops for determination of the valid intersection lines greatly increases the efficiency and the reliability of the process.

Fast Parallel Algorithm for Slicing STL Based on Pipeline

In Additive Manufacturing field, the current researches of data processing mainly focus on a slicing process of large STL files or complicated CAD models. To improve the efficiency and reduce the slicing time, a parallel algorithm has great advantages. However, traditional algorithms can＇t make full use of multi-core CPU hardware resources. In the paper, a fast parallel algorithm is presented to speed up data processing. A pipeline mode is adopted to design the parallel algorithm. And the complexity of the pipeline algorithm is analyzed theoretically. To evaluate the performance of the new algorithm, effects of threads number and layers number are investigated by a serial of experiments. The experimental results show that the threads number and layers number are two remarkable factors to the speedup ratio. The tendency of speedup versus threads number reveals a positive relationship which greatly agrees with the Amdahl＇s law, and the tendency of speedup versus layers number also keeps a positive relationship agreeing with Gustafson＇s law. The new algorithm uses topological information to compute contours with a parallel method of speedup. Another parallel algorithm based on data parallel is used in experiments to show that pipeline parallel mode is more efficient. A case study at last shows a suspending performance of the new parallel algorithm. Compared with the serial slicing algorithm, the new pipeline parallel algorithm can make full use of the multi-core CPU hardware, accelerate the slicing process, and compared with the data parallel slicing algorithm, the new slicing algorithm in this paper adopts a pipeline parallel model, and a much higher speedup ratio and efficiency is achieved.

3D Flash Display for STL Model in Rapid Prototyping System

A kind of 3D color graphics display system for the STL model is developed by calling the functions from Open GL graphic library through VC++6.0 under the Windows environment in this paper. The STL model is a high quality one that can be quiescent or animated. This system is conducive to find out the disfigurement of the STL model in a rapid prototyping process and to repair it. Therefore, the component quality can be enhanced.