Dot printing rather than Extruding?

Viktor,

How about not "calculating" the inner points of a slice but simply running a "fill pattern" with the extruder once you had traced the outline. The psuedo-code might look something like the following:


***Begin silly code example***

Begin Print:

//Here is the majority of the work as all points must be processed along this path
Extrude Outline();

//Now we do the fill pattern
var_current_x = start of object;
Fill Outline()
{
Do
//We simply remember our points in the outline and use the following as a mathematical function. We put in an x value and it gives us a y-value or vice versa so that we know where to go to. In this case we are filling in the x direction.
Fill_to(Outline_points(y)-1);

//Then we simply increase the x line we are filling up and do it again.
var_current_x += 1;

While(var_current_x < max_x_in_outline)
}

***End silly code example***

Of course you would need to check for gaps in the slice and move over them but it should be given fairly easily with the slice-point information.

Damn, gotta go to work!

Demented

Demented,

... not the calculation is the bottleneck, but the extruding-time of the volume ...

AFAIK the actual host-software does already patterning the inner volume - here you can win nearly 50 to 60 percent, as you extrude only every second or third line ...

But with 'cutting-only' the contour-outlines you can ignore the complete inner volume, what's thousandfold faster with micron-accuracy, as the amount of contour-lines rises only linear with the accuracy, but the volume-points quadratic - and as you reduce the slice-height with higher accuracy too, it's even a factory more!

So with a 'only contouring' fabbing i can drastically speed up the complete process or/and rise the accuracy until the actual limits ...

With knife-cutting there can be sheet-heights of some ten microns and line-accuracies in 0,01 microns too when you use an active rotating knife.

With diode-laser i have a spot-size of nearly 50 microns, so i can cut/melt something from 30 to 70 microns, energy-dependant.

With a powder- and ink-jet-system i can actually use powder-sizes of 10 to 30 microns, so with the inaccuracies with coagulating the powder-particles i'll have a finishing of smaller 0,1 mm - with infilling and micro-sanding there should be a possible surface-accuracy of maybe 50 microns ...

But with all methods i have an estimated accuracy of nearly 10 to 30 microns in Z and 20 to 50 microns in X,Y - so calculate with a 3D-pixel/voxel of 20x20x20 microns in comparison to actual output-size with a filament-thread of 500 microns - it's nearly a factor of x8.000 3D-points/voxels more with 'only' 20-fold higher accuracy!

Viktor