Verification of data compression focusing on continuity in 3D printing

Recently, 3D printers have become capable of producing relatively large, high-resolution models. Unlike simple shapes, it is becoming possible to print large complex shapes with high accuracy. However, the data size of complex models is also large, and the slice data required for printing is also large. Thus, in this study, we investigated reducing the data size by focusing on the characteristics of the slice data required for 3D printing. The proposed method focuses on the continuity of each layer and the top/bottom layers of the cross-section used to print the 3D model. Preliminary experiments were conducted to determine whether the data size could be reduced by applying the difference method. Here, the results obtained from the continuity were output as text data, and various metadata, e.g., lamination pitch data, required for printing were ZIP compressed. Then, we compared conventional file formats as a format that can be converted as a printable file as lossless compression. The results demonstrated that the file size can be reduced for 3D complex shapes with a large number of vertices, which are difficult to handle. We found that the proposed difference method was effective for relatively large files that require a general-purpose graphics processing unit to create slice data.