OpenVCAD: An open source volumetric multi-material geometry compiler

Abstract

Modern additive manufacturing has made significant advancements in multi-material fabrication techniques that allow for position-specific control of material deposition. With these advancements, design tools have fallen behind machine capabilities in specifying volumetric information. Traditionally, design and fabrication workflows have expressed multi-material objects as several single-material bodies. By storing only the information about the surfaces of the geometries, information about the volumetric composition of the solids is unrepresented. The intense interest in compliant mechanisms and meta-materials demands a new design method that can support architecting material distribution throughout an object. To address these needs, we present OpenVCAD, an open-source volumetric design compiler with multi-material capabilities. OpenVCAD provides a scriptable suite of geometric and material design methods that enable efficient representation of objects with complex geometry and material distributions. OpenVCAD allows functional specification of multi-material volumes that are parameterized on spatial locations, yielding complex multi-material distributions that would be impossible to describe using alternative methods. This paper will present the OpenVCAD pipeline, compare it to related work, and demonstrate its use through the design and manufacturing of functionally graded multi-material components.