SPATIALLY-AWARE DETECTION OF TRAPPED SUPPORT AREAS IN 3D PRINTING

摘要

A computer-aided design (CAD) system may support spatially-aware detection of trapped support areas in 3D printing. The CAD system may detect trapped support areas in the surface mesh (210) in that detected trapped support area do not have linear access to an opening in the surface mesh (210), including by surrounding the surface mesh (210) with a virtual bounding box (220) that encloses the surface mesh (210), mapping the virtual bounding box (220) and surface mesh (210) into a 3D cube space (230), and tracking mesh cubes (301, 401, 501, 505, 507) and bounding cubes (303, 511) of the 3D cube space (230). For a given mesh face (310, 410, 520, 530, 540, 550) of the surface mesh (210), The CAD system may determine whether the given mesh face (310, 410, 520, 530, 540, 550) is part of a trapped support area by projecting a ray from the given mesh face (310, 410, 520, 530, 540, 550) and assessing the given mesh face (310, 410, 520, 530, 540, 550) as part of a trapped support area based on the ray passing through a mesh cube (301, 401, 501, 505, 507) or a bounding cube (303, 511).