A visual simulation technique for 3D printing

Rapid prototyping technologies can create the physical part directly from the digital model by accumulating layers of a given material. Providing a tremendous flexibility of a part geometry that they can fabricate, these technologies present an opportunity for the creation of new products that cannot be made with existing technologies. One of its capabilities is to fabricate surface texture, which denotes a set of tiny repetitive geometric features on an object surface. In this paper we propose a visual simulation technique involving development of an intermediate geometric model of the surface texture design prior to fabricating the physical model. Careful examination of the visually simulated model before the actual fabrication can help minimize unwanted design iterations. The proposed technique demonstrated visualization capability by comparing the virtual model with the physical model for several test cases. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.