2 STEREOLITHOGRAPHY

4.2 Stereolithography: A General Overview

'33

3"D:;o]idmodd

Materialaddition processes

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fo.-mal

CAD

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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).