• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.140-147
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• 1995

This paper deals with conversion from the STL file to the Slice to the Slice cross-sectional information for Stereolithography. The STL file is widely used for Stereolithography, but it is very difficult to convert STL file into Slice file directly. Because it consists of an ordered list of triangular net without any topological information other than the orientation of each facet. So, The system is accomplished by data flow through several intermediate stages such as Reference. SL1. .SL2L. .SL3. and .SLC file. The data processing is performed in 5 steps: 1) Create a Reference file including common information. 2) Modify STL file within the effective range of SL machine. 3) Calculate a point of intersection between plane equation and line equation. 4) Sort z values in ascending order using quick sort algorithm. 5) Search the adjacent points and formulate a closed loop usingsingly linked linear list. The system is developed by using Borland C++ 3.1 compiler in the environment of Pentium PC, and verified to be satisfactory by making some prototypes of electric household appliances.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.18-25
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• 1996

In this study, we have developed the stereolithography system that supports the development of a products. This paper presents the development of the stereolithography system. The system is composed of hardware, software and control part. The software converts a STL file to NC data and displays the monitoring figure in control part. The hardware part deals with structure of machine. The most important theme in this paper is LG-SLCAM software. This software can generate NC data and scanning condition data from a STL file semiautimatically. On the basis of three diensional shapes, it makes data for support structure from STL file. The effectiveness of using out stereolithography system is confirmed by processes of good development.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1995.04b
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• pp.445-450
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• 1995

This paper deals with conversion from STL file to Slice cross-sectional information for Stereolithography. The STL file consist of three vertices of triangle and normal vectors in order to represent three dimension shape, but It is very difficult to convert STL file intoSlice file directly, because of file size from one Mbyte to tens of Mbytes. So, The system is accomplished data flow such as neutral.dat, .SL1, .SL2, .SL3, and .SLC file. The data processing is as follows: 1. Create a neutral file including common information. 2. Modify STL file within effective scope of SLA. 3. Calculate a point of intersection between plane equation and line equation. 4. Sort z values by increasing order. 5. Search closed loop by method of singlylinked linear list. The system is developed by using Borland C++ 3.1 compiler in the environment of Pentium PC. We get a satisfactory prototype as a result of application about a lot of household electrical appliances.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.68-74
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• 2000

The STL file format is an approximation of 3-D model with triangular facets. STL is a standard input file format of Rapid Prototyping(RP) equipment In computer graphics a circle has been approximated with an inscribed polygon which causes an error between the real and approximated circles. In this study an intersecting polygon has been used to approximate the circle and applied to produce more accurate RP part. The newly proposed method shows it's excellence in part accuracy.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.22 no.9 s.174
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• pp.194-201
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• 2005

Recently, as Rapid Prototyping is attracting people's attention, many peoples are actively participating in the research on STL format. The STL files are transformed to be input for RP after modeling in CAD system. When the shape, however, needs to be changed or edited, it is impossible without the original data. So, if the original data is lost, new modeling is required. Therefore, this study suggests a way to edit the shape in STL format and to make the Boolean operation possible between the original and edited shapes. In addition, the reliability was confirmed after going over the errors of the edited data.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.21-27
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• 1998

This paper recommends the database construction for STL data and the new method of Delaunay's triangulation method in order to decrease volume errors by verifying STL file errors and modifying hole errors. Each vertex for the boundary coordinates of the verified hole errors was analyzed according to the following cases: planes or slow curves, edges, apexes, and rapid curves. In each case, a different modification process was adopted. With this method, most errors resulting from the conversion into the STL data as well as lots of volume errors arising from error modification were decreased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.965-969
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• 1995

This paper deals with effective using the IGES file for flexible data exchange among the other CAD/CAM system. If a data exchange between STL file and the neutral IGES file in Stereolithography system is available, a product design becomes more flexible. THere can be many restrictions and difficulties intranslating these data. First, an STL file follows two rules, such as right-hand rule, and vertex-to-vertex rule, thus requires a structural verification. Second, translation should be performed with minmal errors. It becomes very important to translate IGES file of limited kinds of entities fot the purpose of geometric information into STL file with minor data manipulation. The developed system suggests a good approach of translating the sampled B-spline surface of IGES and shows a potential linkage between IGES and STL format file.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.7 s.262
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• pp.739-746
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• 2007

Recently, models in STL files are widely used in reverse engineering processes, CAD systems and analysis systems. However the models have poor geometric quality and include only triangles, so the models are not suitable for the finite element analysis. This paper presents a general method that generates finite element mesh from STL file models. Given triangular meshes, the method estimates triangles and makes clusters which consist of triangles. The clusters are merged by some geometric indices. After merging clusters, the method applies plane meshing algorithm, based on domain decomposition method, to each cluster and then the result plane mesh is projected into the original triangular set. Because the algorithm uses general methods to generate plane mesh, we can obtain both tri and quad meshes unlike previous researches. Some mechanical part models are used to show the validity of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.141-146
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• 2002

Stereolithography is the best known as rapid prototyping system. It uses the STL format data which is generated from CAD system. In this study, One of the main function of this developed CAM system deals with shape modification which divide a shape into two parts or more. The cross section of a STL part by a z-level is composed with nested or single polygonal closed loop. In order to make RP product, closed loops must fill with triangular facets from SSET and recover sliced triangular facets which is located normal direction to the cross sectional plane. The system is development by using Visuall C++ compiler in the environment of pentium PC. Operating system is Windows NT workstaion from Micro-Soft.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1214-1218
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• 2005

As demands for precision parts are increased, existing methods to fabricate them such as MEMS, LIGA technology have the technical limitations like high precision, high functionality and ultra miniaturization. A micro-stereolithography technology based on $DMD^{TM}$(Digital Micromirror Device) can meet these demands. In this technology, STL file is the standard format as the same of conventional rapid prototyping system, and 3D part is fabricated by stacking layers that are sliced as 2D section from STL file. Whereas in conventional method, the resin surface is cured as scanning laser beam spot according to the section shape, but in this research, we use integral process which enables to cure the resin surface at one time. In this paper, we deal with the dynamic pattern generation and $DMD^{TM}$ operation to fabricate micro structures. Firstly, we address effective slicing method of STL file, conversion to bitmap, and dynamic pattern generation. Secondly, we suggest $DMD^{TM}$ operation and optimal support manufacturing for $DMD^{TM}$ mounting. Thirdly, we examine the problems on continuous stacking layers, and their improvements in software aspects.