Path Planning For 3D Additive Manufacturing

3D printing is a kind of rapid prototyping technology,also known as additive manufacturing.It is a technology based on digital model files,which uses powder metal or plastic and other adhesive materials to construct objects by layer printing.Traditional additive manufacturing technologies,such as melt deposition and vapor deposition,have limited manufacturing accuracy and are difficult to meet the requirements of micro precision manufacturing.Compared to traditional 3D printing,two-photon polymerization printing has higher precision dimensions,i.e.,micron or even nanometer level processing capabilities,and has huge industrial application needs in fields such as microelectromechanical systems,micro nano photonic devices,microfluidic devices,biomedical and tissue engineering,and new materials.Femtosecond laser two-photon polymerization processing involves nonlinear two-photon absorption between photopolymer materials and femtosecond laser pulses.The scanning system scans the layered cross-section to achieve solidification of the cross-section area.And through layer by layer processing,three-dimensional microstructures are formed.Therefore,during the machining process,scanning path planning,as an important factor affecting the accuracy and efficiency of formed parts,is of great significance for the entire 3D printing process.This article elaborates on the key technologies of path planning algorithm design,including the reading of STL files,layered slicing algorithm,sorting and intersection of triangular patches within layers to form contours,and filling algorithm within contours.Among them,in order to meet the needs of different accuracy and time costs,the article designs an equal layer thickness layered algorithm and an adaptive algorithm,and uses various filling algorithms such as Z-shaped filling and triangle filling to further optimize the path planning algorithm.To verify the feasibility of the path planning algorithm,this article uses open-source software Blender to plugin and modularize the entire path planning algorithm,and tests it through examples.The results show that the path planning algorithm proposed in this article can effectively achieve solidification of the cross-sectional area and minimize processing time and cost while ensuring a certain degree of accuracy.At the same time,this article also explores the advantages,disadvantages,and applicable scenarios of several filling algorithms.