In nozzle-based three-dimensional printing, transitions are movements of the printing nozzle from a path endpoint to a path start-point. These transitions diminish printing quality by causing strings. A method to minimize the number of transitions based on direction-parallel line segments is presented in this paper. The endpoints of line segments were considered to be “cities” in converting the problem of minimizing the number of transitions into a traveling salesman problem (TSP). A genetic algorithm solver was developed by designing an oriented mutation method for the TSP. Compared with other algorithms for solving the TSP, our algorithm generates paths with fewer transitions. The algorithm was tested using several fused-deposition-modeling and weld arc additive manufacture examples to confirm that the generated paths were reasonable.

在基于喷嘴的 3D 打印中，过渡是打印喷嘴从路径端点到路径起点的移动。这些过渡会导致出现字符串，从而降低打印质量。本文提出了一种基于方向平行线段来最小化过渡次数的方法。在将最小化转换次数的问题转换为旅行商问题 (TSP) 时，线段的端点被认为是“城市”。通过设计TSP的定向变异方法，开发了遗传算法求解器。与其他求解 TSP 的算法相比，我们的算法生成的路径具有较少的转换。该算法使用几个熔融沉积建模和焊接电弧增材制造示例进行测试，以确认生成的路径是合理的。