Development of stereolithography slicing algorithm for additive manufacturing technology

The human life is conspicuously convenience from the advancements in the manufacturing techniques existing for product development. In an order to produce the rapid prototype of complex parts with higher accuracy and in less time span, the additive manufacturing is considered as one of the most prominent technique. In an aim to develop the product through additive manufacturing, slicing of tessellated model plays the crucial role in product development pipeline. Therefore, this work is aimed towards the development of an efficient uniform slicing algorithm fundamentally based on ASCII STL data format. The algorithm development is done in three phases: Initially, the algorithm for STL model reading and facet listing is framed which in result gives us the number of triangles in the tessellated model as well as list of facets. Secondly, the intersection point detection algorithm is framed which in result gives us the set of intersection points between every facet and slicing plane. Thirdly, the sorting of collected intersection points is performed in an order for contour generation is resulted from edge sorting and contour formation algorithm. The consolidated developed algorithm is proposed that would results the list of contours from where the machine toolpath is generated for further product development.