Reduction of Stairase Curvature Effect on Surface Finish in Adaptive Slicing by TruSurf System

Layered manufacturing (LM) processes were initially used for rapid prototyping to help the designer verify part geometry, but are now increasingly used to make moulds for castings. They also have significant potential for the manufacture of one-off and small batch production parts. They may also have inferior material properties when compared with objects manufactured by other means. Poor surface quality is sometimes overcome by performing finishing operations, such as grinding or polishing, after an object is built. The surface with sloping layers has more critical staircase effect and calculating layer thickness and layer length has practical implication on surface finish. The paper specifically deals with error estimation for sloping layer surface and an adaptive slicing procedure for improving the geometric accuracy of layered manufacturing techniques.