The Clemson Intelligent Design Environment For Stereolithography-Cides 2.0
Abstract
There are a large number of commercial Rapid Prototyping (RP) devices available today. All
ofthese machines begin with a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model, which is tessellated,
sliced and then built layer-by-Iayer on the RP device. All ofthese operations, except the actual
building ofthe part, are completed on a computer. Therefore, many improvements to the RP
processes can be achieved through software, without affecting the RP devices or the warranties
on them. This has led to the development of a front-end software product to support the task of
preparing the part to be built. The Clemson Intelligent Design Environment for
Stereolithography (CIDES) is a user-centered interface between the CAD system and RP
systems, primarily the Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA).
CIDES 2.0 is designed to provide a variety oftools which are valuable to the users ofRP
systems, including the ability to view and modify tessellated (STL) files, generate supports, and
slice STL files into layer (SLI) files for use on an SLA. It also provides the ability to view SLI
and merged (V) files. Furthermore, CIDES offers additional translation capabilities that make it
valuable for other RP processes. The package has proven useful in the Laboratory to Advance
Industrial Prototyping (LAIP) at Clemson University. CIDES 2.0 is a new X Windows-based
release based on the original version ofCIDES with many additional features. A new HumanComputer
Interface is the major improvement to this release.