A Study on Laser Scan Path Generation for Improving the Precision of Stereolithographic Parts

광조형물의 정밀도 향상을 위한 Laser주사경로 생성에 관한 연구

Nowadays, as the development paeiod of new products becomes even shorter, the importance of Rapid Prototyping Technology(RPT) has been rapidly increased. The major application of RPT is an early verification of product designs and quick production of prototypes for testing. Moreover, RPT is applied not only as a second tooling process such as mold making and investment casting but also as a creating some physical structure in medical field. Despite the remarkable progress of RPT, it is required to improve various problems resulting from application such as production time, accuracy and materials. This paper presents a laser scan path generation for accuracy of stereolithographicparts The methodology of laser scan path generation is discussed based on the stereolithography, The procedure of this research is as follows : 1) Input laser scanning conditions such as a laser beam diameter and a laser scanning interval, 2) Reconstruct original contours without self intersecting offset, 3) Calculate offset about reconstructed contours, 4) Calculate intersection points between horizontal or vertical lines and offset contours for internal hatch, 5) Decide laser shutter on/off points. The algorithm developed and programmed by C language is verified as an efficient method after testing a number of STL files of mechanical parts.