Specification of VRML in Color Rapid Prototyping

The STL or Stereolithography format, established by 3D systems, gathers the geometric data of the model in a number of triangular surfaces. It can be in ASCII or binary format, and is a de facto standard in the Rapid Prototyping (RP) world. RP has developed greatly over the last ten years. In particular, improvement in materials has meant greater part accuracy and strength, which in turn has increased the range of functional applications. Future applications of RP will focus on rapid tooling and direct manufacturing. Direct manufacturing in particular may see much benefit from the incorporation of color into models. For color RP, besides designing new hardware to add color into the prototypes, it is necessary to redefine the CAD software for adding and accurately positioning color onto the model. STL cannot effectively store this kind of information. Among the existing data file formats, VRML is an acceptable one that is complimentary to existing RP processes. This paper acts as a review to discuss several methods of using VRML for coloring model data. This paper will also discuss the problems occurred in coloring the layer contours of the RP model.