Accurate color reproduction is important in many applications of 3D printing, from design prototypes to 3D color copies or portraits. Although full color is available via other technologies, multi-jet printers have greater potential for graphical 3D printing, in terms of reproducing complex appearance properties. However, to date these printers cannot produce full color, and doing so poses substantial technical challenges, from the shear amount of data to the translucency of the available color materials. In this paper, we propose an error diffusion halftoning approach to achieve full color with multi-jet printers, which operates on multiple isosurfaces or layers within the object. We propose a novel traversal algorithm for voxel surfaces, which allows the transfer of existing error diffusion algorithms from 2D printing. The resulting prints show tremendous detail and realism.
Using this technology, REF extended error diffusion halftoning to 3D objects, while relying on a conventional color prediction model from 2D printing.
Pushing the Limits of 3D Color Printing: Error Diffusion with Translucent Materials
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 35(1), Article 4, December 2015
Mathematics Computer Science