This paper presents a new curved layer volume decomposition method for multi-axis support-free printing of freeform solid parts. Given a solid model to be printed that is represented as a tetrahedral mesh, we first establish a geodesic distance field embedded on the mesh, whose value at any vertex is the geodesic distance to the base of the model. Next, the model is naturally decomposed into curved layers by interpolating a number of iso-geodesic distance surfaces (IGDSs). These IGDSs morph from bottom-up in an intrinsic and smooth way owing to the nature of geodesics, which will be used as the curved printing layers that are friendly to multi-axis printing. In addition, to cater to the collision-free requirement and to improve the printing efficiency, we also propose a printing sequence optimization algorithm for determining the printing order of the IGDSs, which helps reduce the air-move path length. Ample experiments in both computer simulation and physical printing are performed, and the experimental results confirm the advantages of our method.

中文翻译：

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基于测地距离场的曲线层体积分解，用于多轴免支持打印

本文提出了一种新的曲面层体积分解方法，用于自由曲面实体零件的多轴无支撑打印。给定一个表示为四面体网格的要打印的实体模型，我们首先建立一个嵌入在网格上的测地距离场，其值在任何顶点是到模型底部的测地距离。接下来，通过插入多个等测地距离表面 (IGDS)，将模型自然分解为弯曲层​​。由于测地线的性质，这些 IGDS 以一种固有且平滑的方式自下而上变形，将用作对多轴打印友好的弯曲打印层。此外，为了满足无碰撞要求，提高打印效率，我们还提出了一种打印顺序优化算法来确定 IGDS 的打印顺序，这有助于减少空气移动路径长度。在计算机模拟和物理打印方面进行了大量实验，实验结果证实了我们方法的优势。