Feature Extraction From Tessellated And Sliced Data in Layered Manufacturing

When parts are built in layers, the cross sectional area of each layer has to be defined and filled with a pattern of vectors. This filling process is called hatching and the vectors defme the hatch pattern. To accurately reproduce a three dimensional object, key features need to be identified. In particular, top and bottom surfaces, edges. holes and protrusions must be recognized to ensure the slice plane does carry-the critical information required for the build. This paper describes a technique to extract relevant features from a tessellated model to generate a correct sliced representation.