There is provided a method of generating instructions for manufacturing of a functionally graded material (FGM) object, comprising: providing geometric trivariate(s) defining geometry of FGM object, providing material trivariate(s) defining material properties of the FGM object, computing a volumetric representation of the FGM object that includes the geometric trivariate(s) and the material trivariate(s) spanning a same parametric domain, and computing code instructions for execution by a manufacturing device controller of a manufacturing device for manufacturing of the FGM object by: identifying locations within the boundaries defined by the geometric trivariate(s) of the volumetric representation, computing respective material value(s) for each of the locations according to the material trivariate(s) of the volumetric representation corresponding to the identified locations, and converting the locations from the parametric domain to the Euclidean space, wherein each of the locations in Euclidean space is associated with the respective material value(s).

A building plan assistance method by which a mathematical model is used to associate input information, including the respective items of the material of a build object, a weld condition of weld beads, and a weld track, with output information including a characteristic value of the build object when additively manufactured under the condition of the input information, and a database is created using the mathematical model. The database is searched for a build object material, a weld condition, and a weld track corresponding to a target characteristic value of the build object to be manufactured, and the obtained build object material, weld condition, and weld track are presented. In the creating of the database, each of input sub-items of the input information items is associated with an individual characteristic value of the output information by means of the mathematical model.

A method of additively printing an extension segment on a workpiece includes pretreating a workpiece-interface of the workpiece using an energy beam emitted from an energy beam source of an additive manufacturing machine, providing a pretreated workpiece-interface having received a pretreatment, with the pretreatment remediating an aberrant feature of the workpiece and/or the workpiece-interface. The method further includes additively printing an extension segment on the pretreated workpiece-interface using an energy beam emitted from the energy beam source of the additive manufacturing machine. The aberrant feature includes one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface having been determined from a digital representation of the workpiece-interface captured by a vision system. The pretreatment includes heat-conditioning at least a portion of the workpiece-interface including the one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface.

A method of additively printing an extension segment on a workpiece includes pretreating a workpiece-interface of the workpiece using an energy beam emitted from an energy beam source of an additive manufacturing machine, providing a pretreated workpiece-interface having received a pretreatment, with the pretreatment remediating an aberrant feature of the workpiece and/or the workpiece-interface. The method further includes additively printing an extension segment on the pretreated workpiece-interface using an energy beam emitted from the energy beam source of the additive manufacturing machine. The aberrant feature includes one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface having been determined from a digital representation of the workpiece-interface captured by a vision system. The pretreatment includes heat-conditioning at least a portion of the workpiece-interface including the one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface.

Methods of additively printing an extension segment on a workpiece may include pretreating a workpiece-interface of a workpiece using an energy beam from an additive manufacturing machine, providing a pretreated workpiece-interface having received a pretreatment, with the pretreatment remediating an aberrant feature of the workpiece and/or the workpiece-interface. Such methods may additionally include additively printing an extension segment on the pretreated workpiece-interface using the energy beam from the additive manufacturing machine. Exemplary additive manufacturing system for printing an extension segment on a workpiece may include a controller operably coupled to a vision system and an additive manufacturing machine.

An information processing apparatus includes a processor, and the processor is configured to: acquire three-dimensional image data for printing processing for modeling a three-dimensional modeled object by forming respective images on recording media and stacking the recording media, and other image data for other printing processing, determine an arrangement to form at least one of the respective images and at least a part of the other image data on same one of the recording media so as to reduce a difference between a height corresponding to the number of recording media to which the other image data is to be recorded and a height of the three-dimensional modeled object, and output image forming information for forming the three-dimensional image data and the other image data on the recording media to an image forming apparatus based on the determined arrangement.

A method of generating three-dimensional shaping data includes: a first step of acquiring first shape data representing a shape of a three-dimensional shaped object; a second step of accessing a database and inquiring whether second shape data corresponding to the first shape data is stored in the database; and a third step of acquiring or generating the three-dimensional shaping data for shaping the three-dimensional shaped object in accordance with an inquiry result in the second step. In the third step, when the second shape data is stored in the database, second shaping data associated with the second shape data is acquired from the database as the three-dimensional shaping data, or the three-dimensional shaping data is generated using related data related to the second shaping data, and when the second shape data is not stored in the database, first shaping data is generated using the first shape data as the three-dimensional shaping data.

A display unit of a design assistance system highlights an error section of a 3D model and displays at least one of a designation condition recognized by an elimination condition recognition unit and an elimination section.

A method of determining a life defining quantity of a production component manufactured by an additive manufacturing process. The method includes the step of defining a plurality of components to be manufactured by an additive manufacturing technique. The plurality of components has a first test piece and a first production component. The method further includes manufacturing the components in the same manufacturing batch using an additive manufacturing process and with nominally the same material composition and build parameters. A characteristic mechanical property of the first test piece is then determined. The method further includes determining a value of a life defining quantity of the first production component as a function of the first test piece characteristic mechanical property. The first production component and first test piece are then provided with indicators which associate the first production component with the determined life defining quantity.

A procedural approach toward optical characterization of subsurface scattering of light to generate a mixture of optically opaque materials and optically transparent materials, with a scattering map projected from the surface toward the center of mass of a model. The resulting voxel slices communicate with an additive manufacturing printer, with the resulting model using a typical CMYK and white mixture, with the addition of transparency keyed to the alpha channel of the voxel slice texture maps, to create an accurate model. The resulting stack of textures have color values for the voxels at the surface that are extrapolated downward to the center of the mass from the surface normal, thereby creating a color and texture spectrum from the surface normal to the center of mass, to more accurately represent color and texture on a printed object.