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MODERN EQUIPMENT REVIEW SPOTLIGHT | Additive Manufacturing MMS FEBRUARY 2018 136 mmsonline.com GPMI IS YOUR COMPLETE CONTRACT MANUFACTURING SOURCE FOR PRECISION STEEL, ALUMINUM, BRASS, BRONZE AND COMPOSITE PRODUCTS. 700 E. Soper Road | Bad Axe, MI 48413 989-623-4099 | metalsales@geminigroup.net | www.geminigroup.net/gpmi In-Process Correction Technology Added for Hybrid Metal 3D Printer Sodick has developed a new In-Process Correction system for its OPM hybrid metal 3D printer. Using a CCD camera installed within the machine, the In-Process system aligns the OPM's 500-W fiber laser and 45,000-rpm spindle, and automatically corrects their posi- tions and performs realignments when they become due in the maintenance cycle. The company says the system improves the precision of both the laser sintering and milling processes, reduces the frequency of maintenance and ensures greater process accuracy. The improved accuracy of the machine further makes it possible to pro- gram a smaller offset, ultimately reducing the amount of machining time required by as much as 25 percent. The system is said to enable producing parts faster and more reliably with less frequent maintenance. | Sodick Inc. | 847-310-9000 sodick.com Software Processes Polygon Meshes for 3D Printing Design MachineWorks Ltd. announces the latest release of its software development toolkit for handling triangulated mesh, Polygonica v2.1. Polygonica is a solid modelling software toolkit that helps additive manufacturers solve complex geometrical problems through creating their own software applications. Built on MachineWorks' core engines, Polygonica's polygonal modelling technology provides automatic, fast and robust Boolean operations. Main functions of Polygonica include mesh healing, mesh offsetting, mesh analysis, mesh simplification, remeshing and point-cloud manipulation. Other algorithms in Polygonica allow solid healing, simplification, slicing, sectioning and spun profile calculation. Polygonica has a wide range of applications such as repairing defective models with vast numbers of poly- gons, rapid prototyping and reverse engineering. Polygonica's new application programming interface allows users to imprint onto a solid, generating curves on the surface, which can be used to trim surfaces and extract regions bounded by the curves. The API also enables users to emboss or engrave a curve or a 2D profile onto a solid, wrapping it onto a 3D sur- face. This functionality also enables enclosed regions to be offset outward or inward. The latest release also includes smoothing and fairing algo- rithms, which remove noise from a mesh and ensure that a region of solid is as smooth as possible while maintaining conti- nuity at its boundary. Polygonica provides a method for defining a lattice, coupled with a function for intersecting lattices with solids, which can help create support structures. The software also enables users to create a 3D shape by moving a 2D profile or 3D solid along an arbi- trary 3D path, which can help in creating tubes, pipes or moldings. | MachineWorks Ltd. | 44 114 223 1370 machineworks.com