A Reeb Graph Approach for Faster 3D Printing

Material extrusion additive manufacturing is an essential technology for rapid prototyping. The standard approach to planning the deposition toolpath for this technology builds each layer sequentially. Unfortunately this approach typically results in significant wasted motion, which is a barrier for use in industrial production. In this paper, we give a new method for toolpath planning that improves on the layer-based approach as well as our own previous methods that build toolpaths across layers. Our approach utilizes a Reeb decomposition on the input model, which is a geometric decomposition that allows toolpath planning over subcomponents of the model rather than over individual extrusion segments. This allows a top-down construction of toolpaths, and is highly effective. We test our new approach, which we call Reeb planning, over a benchmark of 50 models and achieve a reduction of 49.7% in wasted motion over standard layer-based methods. Our decomposition scheme also provides insight into model classification, which can be used for improved production planning.