Methods of representing three dimensional articles to be produced using additive manufacturing processes in digital file formats
A design with multiple instances of a three-dimensional article is printed by first defining a unit cell that includes a single instance of a three-dimensional article that repeats in the design along with its nearest neighbor elements in both a plane of a build plate of a target printer on which the design is to be printed and a plane orthogonal thereto. The design is represented in an output file of a design application and a slicer application then generates instructions to manufacture the design by the target printer. The instructions (g-code) include directions to print, for each of a specified number of layers a number of instances of the unit cell that can be accommodated within a build envelop of the target printer per layer as determined by said slicer application. The design is printed by the printer according to the instructions from the slicer application.
1. A method, comprising:
for a design involving multiple occurrences of a three dimensional (3D) article to be printed, defining a unit cell that represents an element of the three-dimensional (3D) article that repeats in each one of the multiple occurrences of the 3D article that makes up the design and providing an output file that includes the unit cell to a slicer application, wherein the unit cell is a three-dimensional object;
generating, by the slicer application, a cross-sectional image of the design, for use by a target printer to manufacture the design, by for each of the multiple occurrences of the 3D article, replicating an image of the unit cell over a length and breadth of a build plate of the target printer for a layer of the design that includes the element represented by the unit cell, wherein the image of the unit cell is a two-dimensional area; and
printing the layer of the design by the target printer using the cross-sectional image produced by the slicer application.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the image of the unit cell is replicated over an entirety of the build plate.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cross-sectional image is presented by a mask of the target printer.