Model guided DLP 3D printing for solid and hollow structure

Manufacturing speed is one of the biggest challenges in 3D printing. Continuous stereolithography printing can effectively improve the printing speed. However, the model it can print is limited to the hollow out structure or flake structure. In the real application scenario, the models are the composition of multiple kinds of structures such as solid structure, hollow out structure, or flake structure. The continuous stereolithography printing scheme will not work for such models. We first propose a concept of maximum fillable distance (MFD) for a set of resin material and printing settings. And for a specific kind of printing setting, the MFD of resin material at different moving speeds is estimated by experiments. Furthermore, the max-min distance of each slice of the model is computed. And a printing control scheme to combining the continuous and layer-wise printing is generated automatically by comparing the max-min distance and MFD. Using the printing control scheme, two real models are successfully printed.