A Decomposition-Based Approach to Layered Manufacturing

Abstract

Layered Manufacturing allows physical prototypes of 3D parts to be built directly from their computer models, as a stack of 2D layers. This paper proposes a new approach, which decomposes the model into a small number of pieces, builds each separately, and glues them together to generate the prototype. This allows large models to be built in parallel and also reduces the need for so-called support structures. Decomposition algorithms that minimize support requirements are given for convex and non-convex polyhedra. Experiments, on convex polyhedra, show that the approach can reduce support requirements substantially.

Research of II and RJ supported,in part,by NSF grant CCR.9712226 and by NIST grant 60NANB8D0002.Portions of this work were done when RJ visited the University of Magdeburg and JS and MS visited the University of Minnesota under a joint grant for international research from NSF and DAAD.