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Smoothing STL files by Max‐Fit biarc curves for rapid prototyping

Bahattin Koc (PhD student in the Department of Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University, USA)
Yawei Ma (Senior Staff Engineer in the R&D Division at Ericsson Inc., North Carolina, USA)
Yuan‐Shin Lee (Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering in the Department of Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University, USA)

Rapid Prototyping Journal

ISSN: 1355-2546

Article publication date: 1 September 2000

1363

Abstract

Presents a method of Max‐Fit biarc curve fitting technique to improve the accuracy of STL files and to reduce the file size for rapid prototyping. STL file has been widely accepted as a de facto standard file format for the rapid prototyping industry. However, STL format is an approximated representation of a true solid/surface model, and a huge amount of STL data is needed to provide sufficient accuracy for rapid prototyping. Presents a Max‐Fit biarc curve fitting technique to reconstruct STL slicing data for rapid prototyping. The Max‐Fit algorithm progresses through the STL slicing intersection points to find the most efficient biarc curve fitting, while improving the accuracy. Our results show that the proposed biarc curve‐fitting technique can significantly improve the accuracy of poorly generated STL files by smoothing the intersection points for rapid prototyping. Therefore, less strict requirements (i.e. loose triangle tolerances) can be used while generating the STL files.

Keywords

Citation

Koc, B., Ma, Y. and Lee, Y. (2000), "Smoothing STL files by Max‐Fit biarc curves for rapid prototyping", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 186-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552540010337065

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited

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