Patent ID: 6678571
Filing Date: 2004-01-13
Classification: B29C,B33Y

Abstract:
A method of forming a three-dimensional object using stereolithography to stimulate a liquid medium to selectively change state to a solid to form the three-dimensional object comprising:(a) retaining in a container a liquid state medium capable of transformation to a solid state upon the selective application of energy to stimulate a change of state; (b) receiving a data description of an object to be formed; (c) manipulating the received data to optimize the data for use in selectively applying energy to stimulate the change of state of the liquid medium to form an object, the manipulating of the received data identifying all vertices within calculated slice layers of the data description of the object and slicing the object such that slice boundary layers pass through each vertex; and (d) selectively applying the energy to the liquid medium in the container to form the three-dimensional object layer by layer, the object being formed by performing a Boolean function on the sliced layers to generate a build object with smooth contours.