An Effective Tangential Cutting Algorithm for Rapid Prototyping

For laser-cutting rapid prototyping systems that fabricate objects with layers having a certain degree of thickness, it is necessary both to minimize surface distortion and to generate dynamically feasible laser cutting trajectories. An effective tangential layer cutting algorithm is developed for this requirements. An energy function is defined in terms of tangential line lengths and their distances. And the energy is minimized for the tangential lines to closely describe a layer suffice. Our method is applied to 3D model samples and the generated tangential lines effectively approximate layer surface and make laser trajectory smooth.