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Slicing and Contour Data

Slicing involves intersecting horizontal planes with a CAD model to create layers. A small slice thickness leads to long build times, while a large one causes poor surface finish due to staircasing. Slicing procedures aim to balance build time and surface quality. Contours are determined by intersecting slice planes with faces. Internal and external contours are identified using ray casting with horizontal or angled lines. Contour data is organized with parameters like registration codes and clockwise/counter-clockwise directions to define solid areas for each layer.

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Shubham Sharma
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151 views16 pages

Slicing and Contour Data

Slicing involves intersecting horizontal planes with a CAD model to create layers. A small slice thickness leads to long build times, while a large one causes poor surface finish due to staircasing. Slicing procedures aim to balance build time and surface quality. Contours are determined by intersecting slice planes with faces. Internal and external contours are identified using ray casting with horizontal or angled lines. Contour data is organized with parameters like registration codes and clockwise/counter-clockwise directions to define solid areas for each layer.

Uploaded by

Shubham Sharma
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Slicing

❖ Creating contours of sections of the geometry at various heights


in the multiples of layer thickness
❖ Slicing of CAD model with a very small slice thickness leads to
large build time.
❖ At the same time if large slice thickness is chosen, the surface
finish is very bad due to stair casing.
❖ These two contradicting issues namely reduction in build time
and better surface quality a major concern in laminated
manufacturing.
❖ This contradiction led to the development of number of slicing
procedures.
❖ In slicing, sets of horizontal planes are intersected with CAD
model.
❖ The space between any two consecutive horizontal planes is
referred to as a slice or slicing thickness.
❖ Deposition of sliced layers leads to staircase effect.
❖ The staircase effect cannot be eliminated on a RP part
completely.

Staircase effect in RP parts


Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ Based on a user-entered layer thickness, a sequence of parallel
slicing planes can be defined for model slicing.
➢ As a convention, we assume that the model has been properly
oriented such that the z-axis will be the building direction.
➢ Let 𝑑 be the layer thickness and 𝑛 be the total number of slicing
planes excluding the bottom plane with 𝑍 = 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑛 that are not used
during the slicing procedure.
➢ Further, let 𝑍𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑛 be the extreme z-coordinates of the STL
model.
➢ The total number of layers (valid slicing planes) required is then
defined by the following equation

𝑍𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑛
𝑛=
𝑑
Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ The term (𝑍𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑛 ) defines the dimension of the object
along the z-axis.
➢ In this case, the slicing planes are defined as planes parallel to
the 𝑥𝑦-coordinate plane as follows
𝑧𝑖 = 𝑧𝑖−1 + 𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑖 = 1,2, … … , 𝑛
➢ To efficiently use this algorithm, contour points should be sorted
first in the slicing direction, i.e., sorted following the z-
coordinates.
➢ For contour point computation, i.e., for determining the
intersection between one of the face edges and the slicing plane,
a simple intersection algorithm may be used.
A general slicing procedure for STL models.
Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ For RP applications, one further needs to convert the surface
contour points into skin contour points for later tool path
generation.
➢ The determination of skin contours is mainly based on the
tolerance requirement.
➢ Figure shows a model produced using a 'top-down' approach.
All the computed surface contours are directly used as skin
contours for the current layer for model prototyping.
Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ Figure shows a model produced using a 'bottom-up‘ approach.
The computed surface contours are directly used as skin
contours of the next layer.

➢ Figure shows a model produced with negative tolerance. The


produced model is always smaller than the actual computer
model.
Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ Figure shows a model produced with positive tolerance. The
produced model is always larger than the computer model.

➢ With regard to both negative and positive tolerances, one needs


to determine a surface contour point should be used as a skin
contour point of the current or the next layer based on face
inclination, i.e., facing up or facing down, of the model surface
(Liao and Chiu 2001a).
Model slicing and skin contour determination
➢ After completing model slicing and having determined the skin
contours, we should have arrived at a list of skin contours.
➢ Each of the contours is defined by a list of chain contour points.
➢ One can use an arbitrary starting point and the direction of
ordering , i.e., clockwise or counter clockwise, is also arbitrary at
this point and will be decided later.
➢ Figure (a) shows an object
being cut by a slicing plane
and
➢ Figure (b) shows the
individual triangles with
cutting lines.
➢ Figures (c) and (d) show the
surface contours (scaled)
produced after mode l slicing
with two alternative
orientations.
Identification of Internal and External Contours
➢ The contour data identified during the previous step include
both external contours and internal contours as shown in Figure
1 (a).
➢ Any continuous solid area is defined by one external contour
and one or more immediate internal contours.
➢ The algorithm for the identification of the internal and external
contours can be interpreted as follows. It is also a kind of ray
casting algorithm.
➢ For each slice, a line located on the slicing plane is drawn across
the contours as shown in Figure 1(a). Since all slicing planes are
parallel to the xy-coordinate plane, the line can either be parallel
to the x-axis or the y-axis.
➢ The intersection points between the line and the contours are
then computed.
Identification of Internal and External Contours with
a single horizontal line

Figure 1(a) identification with a single horizontal line;


Identification of Internal and External Contours with
Contour type identification with two horizontal lines (L-1
and L-2) or with a single inclined line (L-3):

➢ If no single line satisfies the purpose, more lines should be


constructed until intersection occurs for all contours as shown in
Figure above.
➢ If there is any contour with no intersection, one can simply add
another line going through one of its contour points. In theory, one
may also use inclined lines as shown in Figure
➢ For each of the casting lines, the intersections are sorted and
registered from one side, such as from left to right for horizontal
lines or downwards for vertical lines.
➢ For each of the contours, a registration code is reserved for
indicating the status of a particular intersection, with an odd
number indicating the 'in' condition and an even number
indicating the 'out‘ condition.
➢ An initial registration code of "0" is assigned to all the
intersecting contours before processing.
➢ The registration code of a contour will be incremented by one
when the intersection line meets an intersection point of that
contour during the identification process.
➢ Each of the intersection points will also have a unique registration
code equaling the registration code of the corresponding contour
at that intersection point.
Contour Data Organization
➢ One of the commonly used contour data interfaces is the Common
Layer Interface (CLI) developed through a Brite-Euram project
(Materialise 1994 and Vancraen et al. 1994).
➢ Figure 2 illustrates a data structure adapted from the CLI interface
for contour data organization.
➢ Figure 3 shows an example indicating how the directions of
internal and external contours are defined in a CLI file.

Figure 3: Contour data organization:


external contours - counter clockwise; internal contours - clockwise.
Figure 2: Parameters for contour data organization
Thanks

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