Dual-color mixing for fused deposition modeling printers

• Published in: Computer graphics forum Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 479 - 486
• Main Authors: Reiner, Tim, Carr, Nathan, Měch, Radomír, Št'ava, Ondřej, Dachsbacher, Carsten, Miller, Gavin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2014
• Subjects: 3-D printers; Analysis; Categories and Subject Descriptors; Color; Computer graphics; Fused deposition modeling; I.3.5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling; Image processing systems; Imagery; Printers; Printers (data processing); Prints; Rapid prototyping; Studies; Surface layer; Texture
• ISSN: 0167-7055; 1467-8659
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.12319

In this work we detail a method that leverages the two color heads of recent low‐end fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printers to produce continuous tone imagery. The challenge behind producing such two‐tone imagery is how to finely interleave the two colors while minimizing the switching between print heads, making each color printed span as long and continuous as possible to avoid artifacts associated with printing short segments. The key insight behind our work is that by applying small geometric offsets, tone can be varied without the need to switch color print heads within a single layer. We can now effectively print (two‐tone) texture mapped models capturing both geometric and color information in our output 3D prints.