2 STEREOLITHOGRAPHY
4.2 Stereolithography: A General Overview
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Materialaddition processes
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Fipre 4.1
An ~.STL" file is a tessellated object. The top figure shows a contact
lens holder represented hy many surface patches. The ".STL" file is then sliced.
Laser motions then harden the part (courtesy of Lee Weiss).
One aspect of ongoing research is thus to improve this representation
language
(McMains et aI., 1998).