Rapid prototyping from 3D scanned data through automatic surface and solid generation

Abstract: "With the introduction of solid free form fabrication techniques there has been significant interest in producing prototypes from design representations. Although free form fabrication processes require solid modeling information, the representations available in the design stage might often be of lower order dimensions. In certain cases, the design information is presented as a set of sampled points scanned from 3D objects. In this paper, we describe an implementation where scanned data is automatically converted to surface and solid representations successively using a non-manifold geometric modelling system, NOODLES. After defining valid solid models, prototypes are fabricated with streolithography [sic].The stereolithography process is planned within NOODLES by transforming solid representations into planar slice descriptions using the non-regular set operations provided by NOODLES.