RE: shelling or surface offset

From: Brent Stucker (stucker@uri.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 31 2002 - 16:33:38 EET


Charles,

We have developed a very straightforward offsetting algorithm that works
exclusively with STL. If you wanted to create a shell model out of a solid,
then you can use a Boolean operation, available in various software
packages, to remove the offset STL model from the original STL model,
leaving you with a shell that is the thickness of the offset. This could be
done very effectively with the software we are developing.

The offset algorithm is completed, although we have not decided how the
details of licensing or commercialization is going to be carried out, as
this has been primarily a Ph.D. dissertation topic for now. If anyone out
there is interested in licensing opportunities for these algorithms, I would
be interested in talking to you. There are a number of reasons we believe
our offset algorithm is superior to other algorithms out there, mainly due
to the fact that we offset triangle vertices and then reconstruct the
triangles rather than offsetting the surfaces and then reconstructing the
triangles....

Brent Stucker
_________________________________________________
Dr. Brent Stucker, Director & Asst. Professor
Rapid Manufacturing Center
University of Rhode Island
Dept. of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Gilbreth Hall, 2 East Alumni Ave.
Kingston, RI 02881
ph: (401)874-5187
fax: (401)874-5540
stucker@uri.edu
web: http://www.egr.uri.edu/ime/RMC

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi]On
Behalf Of Charles Overy
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:39 PM
To: rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: shelling or surface offset

Hello,

Does anyone know of a postprocessor type program to do shelling or
offsetting prior to RP. I would prefer that this work on a variety of
surface mesh formats but just STL is better than nothing.
Right Now I know of several two general purpose RP preprocessors that will
do this, Magics and Solidworks RP but I was looking for a simpler shelling
solution in the <1K range.

Thanks

Charles Overy
LGM

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