Continuous toolpath planning for 3d printing

Hello,
I am beginning to work on a continuous tool path for large-scale 3d printing and i would like to develop a script for


hexagonal continuous path infill, but i am not really comfortable with graph algorythm.

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Hello
you can do that.

You will have to if you

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Haha ,
the message was not a continuous path
Thanks for your answer!
i cant figure out the topology what is the topology component called MST ?

I always advise using google search with image using “site:https://discourse.mcneel.com/” so you could use the power of Google.

It means Minimum Spanning Tree, it is from a plugin named Heteroptera. But “Minimum” is not a requirement.

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thanks a lot it works great !
What would be the strategy to have tangent edges like this ?

Just add an offset then “bridge” it to the inner closed path.

i dont understand how to get the closed path following the hexagonal grid contours

You just have to offset the filling region. That’s all. One offset for the exterior, one for the hexagon, the merge the 2.

In my example, bridge means adding 2 paths

So you will get that

I think i don’t get it, i am able to get the surface but how to generate a single path

If you follow the logic I shared here you could do it.

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I did but the logic behind on the picture is a little different i guess.

I am interested because the continuous path is way shorter so it would be faster to print

The logic behind the path should be like this

Ah OK, always better with a drawing! (je commençais a te trouver lourd :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, je pensais que l’on parlait de la précédente méthode)

Well, draw the “let say” vertical curves, cut them with the offseted border, then link the end (portion of offseted border, the green curves)

I felt a kind of mépris
C’est l’occasion d’être lourd à nouveau
Mais je n’ai pas bien compris la méthode que tu proposes.

Hello
sorry for my comment if they were misinterpreted. Most of the time a discussion is about ONE question or ONE subject. You began with Hexagon (closed curves) with double walls. So I stayed on that topics and didn’t understood you wanted to connect Open curves with single wall. It seems the same thing but it isn’t. So I thought you didn’t care of what I said.

So if you want single wall and tangent edges, it will not always output a single wall everywhere, there will be part with no walls, some with one walls, and some with 2 ! And it will surely be not continuous !!!

Whatever the logic will be.
Offset 2 times your curves (contour and holes) , you can use my tool in Nautilus plugin that sorts the curves, the first is always the contour the other the holes.
Keep “C” curves to make the contour
Use the Ci curves to fill with the ZigZag line


generate the Zig zag lines and cut the Ci curves.

Then you need to find a clever way to suppress some of Ci curves
But it is an open curve!

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No that was a “joke” no worries
thanks for your time investigating my question BR

There is now a component on Nautilus plugin to fill a region with hexagons. It outputs a single closed line with bridges.


But you can also use the pattern without bridges, but they are closed polylines

You can suppress the border

WARNING : still WIP tool as I must add a reference tool to have an aligned patterns.

In order to work fully it needs a licence.

I added a guide curve. Here with a Line, I tried my tool on the stool.


You can choose a non linear guide curve


This shape


is sliced using Contour

These contours are used by “Single Line Fill with Hexagons”

Then these closed lines are linked on an open curve

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How do the guide curve helps in the process of slicing ?

For the slicing there is no help. Slicing for me just means finding the border between a slicing plane and the shape.
Guide curve help for the filling position.
The hexagon pattern (filling) needs an orientation an a reference point in the plane of slicing.
The reference point is given by the guide curve. The orientation is obtained with a trick (a line that is in the same plane as the slice).

The guide curve may help in non planar printing to have a pattern following the curvature. So you can insert tubes/pipes … inside.

Keep the angle at 30° for the hexagon pattern for me moment as there is a little problem with the alignement of filling with others angles.