STEREOLITHOGRAPHY COLOR 3D PRINTING METHOD

• US 20190210275A1
• Filed: 06/21/2018
• Published: 07/11/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kinpo Electronics Incorporated (Cal-Comp Electronics Public Company Limited), XYZprinting, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Kinpo Electronics Incorporated (Cal-Comp Electronics Public Company Limited), XYZprinting, Inc.
• Inventors: CHEN, Peng-Yang
• Granted Patent: US 10,449,715 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 64/135 the energy source being concentrated, e.g. scanning lasers or focused light sources
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 64/20 Apparatus for additive manufacturing; Details thereof or accessories therefor
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 64/393 for controlling or regulating additive manufacturing processes
• CPC Class Codes: B33Y 10/00 Processes of additive manufacturing
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/01 Ink jet
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/10 Geometric effects

Abstract

A stereolithography color 3D printing method applied to a stereolithography color 3D printer (1) having a light module (11), a coloring module (12) and a curing platform (17) is provided. The method is to lower the curing platform (17) a default height (h), operate the light module (11) to irradiate stereolithography materials (180) on the curing platform (17) for curing the stereolithography materials (180) and manufacturing one layer of slice physical model (182, 30, 31) according to one layer of object print data, operate the coloring module (12) to color the slice physical model (182, 30, 31), and perform above-mentioned operations repeatedly until a color 3D physical model has been manufactured. Therefore, better printing performance can be achieved and colored 3D physical model with high definition can be manufactured by combining the stereolithography technology with the auto-coloring technology.

Claims

1. A stereolithography color 3D printing method applied to a stereolithography color 3D printer (1), the stereolithography color 3D printer (1) comprising a light module (11), a coloring module (12) and a curing platform (17), the method comprising following steps of:

a) controlling the curing platform (17) to lower a default height (h);

b) controlling the light module (11) to irradiate stereolithography materials (180) on the curing platform (17) for curing the stereolithography materials (180) into one layer of slice physical model (182, 30, 31) according to one layer of object print data;

c) controlling the coloring module (12) to color the slice physical model (182, 30, 31) according to the same layer of color print data; and

d) performing the step a) to the step c) repeatedly for stacking all of the slice physical models (30′

, 31′

) as a color 3D physical model.

2. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 1, further comprising following steps before the step a):

e1) loading color 3D object data;

e2) generating multiple layers of the object print data according to geometric information of the color 3D object data; and

e3) generating multiple layers of the color print data according to color information of the color 3D object data.

3. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 2, wherein each layer of the object print data is a 2D image, each layer of the color print data is a 2D color image;

the step b) is configured to adjust luminous flux of each light spot of the light module (11) for irradiating corresponding positions on the curing platform (17) according to pixel value of each pixel of the object print data;

the step c) is configured to color at the corresponding positions of the slice physical model (182, 30, 31) according to the pixel value of each pixel of the color print data.

4. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 2, wherein the step e3) comprises following steps of:

e31) generating the multiple layers of the color print data according to the color information; and

e32) modifying at least one layer of the color print data for reducing area of a coloring region (310) of the color print data.

5. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 4, wherein the step e32) is configured to reduce the area of the coloring region (310) of the layer of the color print data if the layer of the color print data is a middle layer.

6. A stereolithography color 3D printing method applied to a stereolithography color 3D printer (1), the stereolithography color 3D printer (1) comprising a light module (11), a coloring module (12) and a curing platform (17), the method comprising following steps of:

a) controlling the curing platform (17) to lower a default height (h);

b) controlling the coloring module (12) to color stereolithography materials (180) on the curing platform (17) according to one layer of color print data;

c) controlling the light module (11) to irradiate the curing platform (17) for curing the colored stereolithography materials (180, 40, 41) into one layer of slice physical model (40′

,41′

) according to one layer of object print data; and

d) performing the step a) to the step c) repeatedly for stacking all of the slice physical models (40′

, 41′

) as a color 3D physical model.

7. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 6, further comprising following steps before the step a):

e1) loading color 3D object data;

e2) generating multiple layers of the object print data according to geometric information of the color 3D object data; and

e3) generating multiple layers of the color print data according to color information of the color 3D object data.

8. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 7, wherein each layer of the object print data is a 2D image, each layer of the color print data is a 2D color image;

the step b) is configured to color the stereolithography materials (180) on corresponding positions of the curing platform (17) according to the pixel value of each pixel of the color print data;

the step c) is configured to adjust luminous flux of each light spot of the light module (11) for irradiating the corresponding positions of the curing platform (17) according to pixel value of each pixel of the object print data.

9. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 7, wherein the step e3) comprises following steps of:

e31) generating the multiple layers of the color print data according to the color information; and

e32) modifying at least one layer of the color print data for reducing area of a coloring region (140) of the color print data.

10. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 9, wherein the step e32) is configured to reduce the area of the coloring region (410) of the layer of the color print data if the layer of the color print data is a middle layer.

11. The stereolithography color 3D printing method according to claim 7, wherein the step b) is configured to control the coloring module (12) to jetting the stereolithography materials (181, 40, 41) with different colors to the curing platform (17) for coloring.