Use opengl to design stl viewer for microcomputer

摘要

STL is the de facto data exchange standard for rapid prototyping manufcturing. Before faricating a prototype described in STL, it is necessary for engineer to have a thorough view of this prototype in order to check surface quality, determine manufacturing orientation, and etc. Due to their low costs, microcomputers have been commonly used in RPM for data preparation and machine control, which necessitates the special develoopment of RPM software for them. THis paper discussed how to design STL-model-viewing system which runs on microcomputer by using OpenGL as graphics platform. The use of OpenGl enables a nice, easy, fast and flexible viewing of STL model at the cost ofless programming time.