Research on the slicing method with equal thickness and low redundancy based on STL files

Abstract

ABSTRACT To preserve characteristics of triangles in random order, with high repetition between the adjacent layers in STL files, a uniform thickness algorithm is proposed to improve the slicing efficiency, which deletes the triangles below the slicing plane gradually to decrease the number of searches for intersecting triangles and establish the dynamic topology based on intersecting triangles to obtain orderly intersections and closed profiles. A slicing program is developed based on a VC++ platform and an OpenGL interface. This slicing program is validated by comparing the slicing efficiency of different slicing methods for three ASCII STL models. The results show that the slicing program developed in this work can significantly improve the slicing efficiency of STL models.