|
|
| |
|
|
Christmas trees fabricated in 3D with zero waste-中国最大钣金展-锻压展-2015第十六届广州国际钣金、锻压工业展览会-巨浪展览- The 16th China（Guangzhou）Int’l Sheet metal machinery,Forging, Stamping and Setting Equipment Exhibition
12/17/2014 钣金展-锻压展-sheet metal expo |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|
Researchers have developed an algorithm to produce 3D printed Christmas trees with zero material waste. The advance - made by Richard Zhang, a professor of computing science at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and PhD candidate Ruizhen Hu, an international student from Zhejiang University in China – is claimed to be the first for automatically decomposing a 3D object into pyramidal parts.According to the University, a pyramidal part has a flat base with the remainder of the shape forming upwards over the base with no overhangs, much like a pyramid. A pyramidal shape is optimal for 3D printing because it incurs no material waste and saves print time. As well as 3D printing, the algorithm has applications for designing moulds and for casting.In 3D printing, a printer deposits a material layer-by-layer to form a shape from the bottom upwards. If the shape has an overhang, such as a tree branch, extra material has to be printed beneath it as support. This extra plastic is waste material and must be removed, which can be time consuming and difficult. Similarly, removing waste material that supports an object’s hollow interior or tiny fragile parts, like the star atop a Christmas tree, can be almost impossible without causing breakage.In a statement Zhang said: ‘Coming up with a practical algorithm to decompose 3D objects into the smallest possible number of pyramidal parts was quite a challenge.‘Importantly, it is impractical for most real-world objects to be broken into exactly pyramidal parts since this would result in too many parts.‘Ruizhen came up with a really clever way of transforming the problem to obtain an effective solution.’The new algorithm partitions the object into a small number of nearly pyramidal parts that can be 3D-printed with little or no material waste. These printed parts can then be glued together to form the finished object. The Christmas tree, for example, is divided in half for fabrication, and then glued together.In moulding and casting, the ideas are similar, said Zhang. ‘If the moulded or cast parts are pyramidal, then removing the mould or cast after fabrication would not result in any breakage,’ he said.In keeping with the Christmas theme, he suggests chocolatiers could use the algorithm to design chocolate moulds for Christmas trees or reindeer.Zhang and Hu’s research paper, Approximate Pyramidal Shape Decomposition, has been published in ACM Transaction on Graphics.
中国最大钣金展-锻压展-2015第十六届广州国际钣金、锻压工业展览会-巨浪展览- The 16th
China（Guangzhou）Int’l
Sheet metal machinery,Forging, Stamping and Setting Equipment Exhibition
|
|
|
|
|
