Advanced Pathing for Additive Manufacturing.

In Additive Manufacturing (AM), slicing is the process of dividing a solid body CAD (computer aided design) object into layers by "slicing" the object with a horizontal plane. After the object is cut into layers, toolpaths can be planned for each layer and exported as g-code in a text file that a 3D printer can read. The basic slicing process has been around for many years and has been optimized such that simple models can be sliced in under ten seconds. As 3D printers evolve and new hardware capabilities are developed, advanced software solutions are needed to create the toolpaths to support these systems. This demo will outline four advanced pathing solutions for additive manufacturing including site specific control meshes, adding a degree of freedom to the pathing, real-time control with augmented reality, and automated DXF (drawing exchange format) slicing and packing.