Dear Reader, In accordance with my timeline, I have explored the capabilities of FreeCAD’s FEM Module along with other auxiliary modules in order to find a reliable software program that enables easy application and analysis of stress on a 3D object. I explored the basic functionality on a trivial yet essential structure as shown in […]

Dear Reader, The sphere packing software currently generates 3D internal structural meshes for hollow 3D objects. However, our current usage of sphere packing does not provide a major improvement over simple manual generation of uniform truss structures. The true advantage to using sphere packing is actually the ability to selectively manipulate local regions of the […]

Dear Reader, This week we’re able to see some physical prints of the stl infills generated through the process described my last week’s post. The prints and pictures are all courtesy of Professor John Bowers. Here are photos of a print using the shell included: Thanks for tuning in this week. -Xiang

Dear Reader, This past week I have read over the official OpenSCAD documentation and achieved a limited but sufficient understanding of the OpenSCAD scripting language. To the Sphere Packing software, I have added a new file output for the graph edges as well as a file output for the mesh triangles. Unfortunately, since it doesn’t […]

Dear Reader, A major goal of my Sphere Packing research is to actualize the mathematics and computer models into novel techniques for the mesh generation portion of the 3D printing process. To this end, we need a way to complete the full process starting from an STL model of a 3D object and ending with […]

Dear Reader, Since the last time I posted, I have added the ability to generate a different lattice structure to the Sphere Packing software. This new lattice structure is called the hexagonal close packed (hcp) lattice. It is one of the tightest ways to pack equally sized spheres, with the other way being the face-centered cubic […]

Dear reader, I wish to propose a new method of generating new infill meshes for 3D printing objects. However, let me first give a brief background. Over the summer I worked as a software developer at Oak Ridge to create a suite of tools that apply the mathematical concepts of Circle Packing to generate graphs […]