Abstract
The generation of the printing paths is a decisive step in additive manufacturing (AM). There is a variety of patterns that offer different characteristics, but those that are strictly continuous become especially relevant in certain types of AM by extrusion, with materials like bioinks, carbon or clays, since they do not allow the retraction of the material and travelling movements result in the generation of artifacts. In this work, we present (1) a method that generates continuous paths to fill 2D polygons with a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with any direction and line separation, which extends an algorithm that decomposes the 2D area to be filled into convex areas, overcoming its limitations to generate less subpolygons in certain cases, (2) a method to join the subpolygon trajectories such that a continuous path that fills the whole polygon is obtained, and (3) a publicly available dataset containing (a) a set of 2D polygons that are relevant to test the performance of the algorithms and (b) the results of filling those polygons with our methodology. Results show that the developed methods produce satisfactory results for the polygons contained in the evaluation dataset, including a couple of demonstrations of real 3D prints with the generated trajectories. Further work is needed to extend the methodology to produce suitable solutions for polygons with curved holes.
Highlights
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a manufacturing method that describes a group of processes to produce objects by2 eHealth and Biomedical Applications, Vicomtech, Donostia-San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, SpainInt J Adv Manuf Technol as they cause material agglomeration, which does not satisfy the Tissue Engineering goals [8]
We present a methodology for the generation of continuous infill paths that follow a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with configurable separation between parallel lines and direction
As we do not have the exact coordinates of the polygons or the parameters of the fill patterns used by Ding et al [3], we can only make a visual comparison of the results, with no conclusions about the number of path elements
Summary
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a manufacturing method that describes a group of processes to produce objects by2 eHealth and Biomedical Applications, Vicomtech, Donostia-San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, SpainInt J Adv Manuf Technol as they cause material agglomeration, which does not satisfy the Tissue Engineering goals [8]. There are materials, such as clays [9] or bioinks, which do not have the ability to retract and the dripping produced by travelling movements could produce undesired material overlap This fact becomes especially relevant in bioprinting, where respecting the internal geometry with a high fidelity is crucial to guarantee cell survival and proliferation [10]. If the area to be filled is concave, it will be necessary to break it down into convex areas In this manuscript, we present a methodology for the generation of continuous infill paths that follow a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with configurable separation between parallel lines and direction. We present a methodology for the generation of continuous infill paths that follow a hybrid zig-zag and contour pattern with configurable separation between parallel lines and direction In this way, the print head avoids travelling movements within a closed polygon with or without holes.
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