A Novel Approach to Curved Layer Slicing and Path Planning for Multi-degree-of-Freedom 3D Printing

In this study, we propose a novel approach to overcome the limitations of traditional 3D printing, including restricted degrees of freedom, the staircase effect, and the need for additional support for manufacturing overhanging features. Our method includes a curved layer slicing algorithm and a surface path planning algorithm. This work presents five key contributions: (1) it reduces most of the staircase effect commonly seen in 3D printing; (2) it eliminates most of the need for support structures typically required by traditional 3D printing; (3) its property of reducing most of the staircase effect and the need for support structures is applicable to complex topological shapes, including 1-loss models; (4) it achieves B-spline interpolation through Equidistant arc-length sampling, which is more efficient than Gauss-Legendre and other existing methods; and (5) it has a collision-free path planning strategy based on hierarchical priority to prevent collisions between the printing nozzle and the model being printed. Through rigorous simulation and comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms, we have validated the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach.