Toolpath Planning for Multiple Build Points Using K-Means Clustering

Traditional 3D printers deposit material at one build point at a time, often resulting in long print times. To reduce print time, 3D printers could increase throughput with parallel construction at multiple build points. The primary challenge in path planning for parallel construction is dividing an object between the build points. The object should be divided such that the workload is balanced, and the individual build areas are discrete. This work proposes a variation of k-means clustering for object division. The algorithm considers coordinate position and geometric area as an indicator of workload. This method is demonstrated on several test models to compare workload across the number of build points.