MODIFYING THREE-DIMENSIONAL BUILDS BASED ON AVAILABLE INVENTORY
A variety of techniques for color mixing support a user-controllable palette of colors for use when fabricating three-dimensional objects.
1 . A method comprising:
identifying a three-dimensional computer model of an object including at least one color on a surface thereof;
identifying an inventory of available build materials;
using a computer, automatically determining that the inventory of available build materials cannot be used to fabricate the object on a three-dimensional printer; and
automatically suggesting a modification of the three-dimensional model into a modified three-dimensional model to a user in which the modification allows the object to be fabricated with the inventory of available build materials and the three-dimensional printer.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the modification includes changing a color of at least part of the object.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the modification includes changing a size of at least part of the object.
4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising fabricating the object using the modified three-dimensional model on the three-dimensional printer.
5 . The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a design tool to the user, the design tool operable to allow the user to manually make modifications to the three-dimensional model, and the design tool including a color palette of available colors that can be fabricated using the inventory of available build materials.
6 . The method of claim 5 further comprising selecting a color from the color palette of available colors for suggesting to the user to replace a color in the three-dimensional model unavailable using the inventory of available build materials.
7 . The method of claim 6 wherein the color is selected based on one or more of an availability of build material, a cost of build material, or a predetermined user preference.
8 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the color palette includes colors corresponding to a convex hull of a collection of colors available in the inventory of build materials.
9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the design tool prompts the user to identify a point on the convex hull for use in fabricating the object using the colors available in the inventory of build materials.
10 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the color palette includes an identifier showing a location within the convex hull that minimizes a distance from the colors available in the inventory of build materials to an original color specified by the three-dimensional computer model.
11 . The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying fabrication instructions for the object based on the three-dimensional computer model.
12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising modifying the fabrication instructions to correspond to fabrication of the object based on the modified three-dimensional model.
13 . The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying color and material requirements for fabricating the object based on the three-dimensional computer model.
14 . The method of claim 13 further comprising comparing the color and material requirements to the inventory of available build materials.
15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein comparing the color and material requirements to the inventory of available build materials includes use of a safety factor to account for at least one of a print error and waste.
16 . The method of claim 1 further comprising providing an alert to the user that the inventory of available build materials cannot be used to fabricate the object based on the three-dimensional computer model.
17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the alert includes an identification of a resource needed to supplement the inventory of available build materials in order to fabricate the object based on the three-dimensional computer model.
18 . The method of claim 1 further comprising suggesting a plurality of modifications of the three-dimensional model and prompting the user to select at least one of the plurality of modifications.
19 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the modification includes combining two or more build materials in the inventory of available build materials to achieve a color specified in the three-dimensional model.
20 . The method of claim 1 further comprising automatically selecting an available color closest to a color specified in the three-dimensional model that is unavailable using the inventory of available build materials.