A Frame of 3D Printing Data Generation Method Extracted from CT Data

Abstract

3D Printing based on the CT data of measured object can print out the outer surface structure and internal surface structure of the object and can be used for reverse engineering. This paper presents a frame for generating 3D printing data directly from CT data. The frame includes three steps: firstly, surface mesh data with internal structure is extracted from CT data. Secondly, a mesh model recognized by 3D printer is obtained through generating topological information, removing isolated facets and non-manifold facets, filling holes and smoothing surface. Thirdly, for the target surface mesh model with internal structure or exceeding the maximum size of objects that 3D printer can print, the frame splits the mesh model into several parts and print them separately. The proposed frame was evaluated with a simulated CT data and two real CT data. These experiments showed that the proposed frame is effective to generate 3D printing data directly from CT data and preserve the shape analogy with the original object model with high precision.