Laser Aided Direct Rapid Prototyping

Abstract

We describe a multilevel design hierarchy applicable to the VLSI-like layered manufacturing technology of Solid \nFreeform Fabrication (SFF) called Laser Aided Direct Rapid Prototyping (LADRP). We discuss the interfaces \nbetween the abstraction levels and the requirements of the standard languages needed for the interfaces. We \nprovide experimental verification for the thickness design rule and indicate other possible design rules applicable \nto this process. We then present a software tool called a Slicer that takes a three-dimensional description of \na solid body and creates 2.5D layers for the SFF process. Our current implementation is based on a boundary \nrepresentation of solids described by the Unigrafix solid modeler.