The Automatic Determination of the Optimal Build-Direction in Rapid Prototyping

고속적층조형법에서 최적 적층방향의 자동결정

Rapid Prototyping(RP) is the technique which is used to make prototypes or functional parts directly using the 3-D solid data. Before building the prototype, several processes such as transfering 3D data from CAD system(STL) determination of build-direction, adding support structure and slicing are required. Among the above processes. determination of build-direction is the target of this study. The build direction is determined by many factors according to the objective of the user, like part accuracy, number of support structure, build time, amount of trapped volume, etc, But it is not easy to determine the build-direction because there are many factors and some factors have dependent properties with one another. So, in this study the part accuracy, the number of support structures and build time are considered as the main factor to determine the optimal build-direction. To determine the optimal build-direction for increasing part accuracy, sum of projected area which caused stairstepping effect was considered. The less the projected area is the better part accuracy is About the optimal build-direction to minimize the amount of support structure, sum of projected area of facets that require support structures was considered. About the build time, we considered the minimum height of part we intended. About the build time, we considered the minimun height of part we intended to make.