Designing and Slicing Heterogeneous Components for Rapid Prototyping 428

Many rapid prototyping techniques have the potential for fabricating components whose composition is non-uniform and varies in a desired fashion. A shape and composition modeling technique was developed to enable the representation and design of such heterogeneous components. Techniques for interactively and automatically designing such components are presented. Automatic design is made possible using optimization techniques where the optimal composition distribution is computed based on specified design objective and constraints. Software was also developed to slice 3D heterogeneous solids to generate cross-sectional images as well as composition distribution for each cross-section. Slicing and generation of cross-sectional data are essential to enable rapid prototyping of these components.