Hierarchical Scanning Data Structure for Additive Manufacturing

In additive manufacturing, the digital information of required object model is transferred to additive manufacturing (AM) machine using a technology-independent de facto file format called STL. The approximation of the actual object surface employing STL file causes loss of geometrical and topological information and introduces error to the digital model. This may also limit the manufacturing repeatability between AM machine and processes. This research focuses on building a common data generation platform directly from the commonly used parametric surface model (B-rep). The generic data structure named as Hierarchical Scanning Data Structure (HSDS) is proposed in this research. HSDS will store the actual digital scanning information systematically and sequentially. A common application program interface (API) platform is also proposed in this research, which can access the HSDS and generate machine readable file for different existing AM control systems. The data stored in HSDS can be retrieved remotely and be used by different existing AM controller supporting the cloud/cyber manufacturing process and ensure the platform-independent object repeatability. The proposed framework is implemented with examples and results are compared with the existing system. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.