The Comparison Of Slicing Algorithm Based On STL For 3DP

Recently,3D printing is a hot topic of Additive Manufacturing, the main problem of which is how to extract 2D contours for STL 3D models. The different 2D contours with different slicing algorithm makes a lot of difference, such as staircase effects of printed solid model, printing time and material cost and so on. So the key of this research is the slicing process, and more and more scholars come up with many different slicing algorithm in different ways. Thus, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of these slicing algorithms is very essential. This article is based on above background, to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the slicing algorithm of the 12 STL 3D models with differently complexities by using five different ways of measuring standards, and to propose a improve slicing algorithm based on adaptive slicing algorithm with limited cusp height.First, this article illustrates and analyze the existing five different slicing algorithm, and these include most of the main ones, that is, direct slicing algorithm, uniform slicing algorithm, adaptive slicing algorithm based on limited cusp height, adaptive slicing algorithm based on relative deviation ratio and adaptive algorithm retained bending. Second, it describes five standards, that is, running time, layers number, maximum cusp height, maximum relative area error and average Ra. Finally, after the process method for 12 models, this article uses these five slicing algorithm to get 2D contours of each models respectively and compares the experiment results of each slicing algorithm by five measuring methods. The result shows that various algorithms have their own advantages, but adaptive layered algorithm based on limited cusp height for topology complex models is pretty good and best algorithm on stability.Based on this result, this article propose a new improve adaptive slicing algorithm, which greatly reduces maximum relative area error and average Ra compared with adaptive slicing algorithm based on limited cusp height. Thus it not only lessen staircase effects and increase printing efficiency, but also has certain advantages in model properties.