A dynamic slicing algorithm for conformal additive manufacturing

Multi-directional slicing is one of the crucial steps for realizing non-supporting conformal additive manufacturing (AM). In the present work, a novel strategy for multi-directional slicing is reported. Unlike existing multidirectional slicing strategies, no extra computations were included in the proposed technique, making this novel slicing algorithm to be simple, accurate, and efficient. The slicing process was achieved by directly determining the slicing plane of each layer, whereas the geometric relationship between each slicing plane and a three-dimensional model was used to evaluate the optimal slicing plane for each layer. In addition, a method for searching the optimal slicing plane with a cost-effective computation was also provided. After determining the slicing plane, the coordinate transformation was executed to calculate the slicing contour. Finally, the proposed dynamic slicing algorithm was compared with uniform-directional slicing to verify its performance.