Hollowing STL Objects with Biarcs Fitting to Improve Efficiency and Accuracy of Rapid Proto.pdf

Hollowing STL Objects with Biarcs Fitting to Improve Efficiency and Accuracy of Rapid Prototyping Processes Bahattin Koc * Department of Industrial Engineering University at Buffalo 342 Bell Hall Box 602050 Buffalo, NY 14260-2050, USA Yuan-Shin Lee Department of Industrial Engineering North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7906 * To whom all the correspondence should be sent Abstract This paper presents non-uniform offsetting and biarcs fitting methods to speed up the part building process and increase the accuracy of built part for Rapid Prototyping (RP) processes. The non-uniform offsetting method is developed to build a hollowed object by finding correct offset contours of the Stereolithography (STL) models. Building a hollowed object instead of a solid part can significantly reduce the material consumption and the build time. The Biarcs fitting method is developed to improve the accuracy of the hollowed parts by generating smooth cross-sectional contours. The results show that the presented techniques can improve the efficiency and the accuracy of RP processes. Keywords Rapid prototyping, hollowing, Biarcs fitting, contour smoothing. 1. Introduction Unlike the traditional material removal processes, most common rapid prototyping processes build parts by gradually adding or solidifying materials layer-by-layer. Depositing material or solidifying the material over the whole cross- sectional area of the part is the most time consuming process. The solid part can be hollowed out to speed up the rapid prototyping process to reduce the total build time. Since the hollowing operation decreases the area that needs to be built, depositing or solidifying the material on a smaller area will not only reduce the build time but also reduce the material cost due to expensive RP build material [5]. Parts built by RP processes can be used as a core to make the molds for different casting operations such as investment c