SimuPrint: A Printing Path Simulation Tool for Additive Manufacture

With the rise of additive manufacturing, various methods for quick manufacturing are used to recreate tangible versions of objects modeled using computer-aided design (CAD) software. Additive manufacturing machines use fused deposition modeling and powder bed fusion in the development process. These devices take in Standard Tessellation Language (STL) files and convert them into a low-level language, Geometric Code (G-code), and list each step the printer would have to move to produce the tangible model. Often, the manufacturing process is done without the user visualizing how the process would take place. There is still a lack of a universal way to simulate how a machine would move to produce the object. This research aims to solve the gap by designing a system that simulates the additive manufacturing process. The system shall accept a G-code file and create a simulation of the development process. In testing the system, a match rate of 100% was seen in the recreation of various G-code files. Through this research, various opportunities shall be opened to explore improvements to the additive manufacturing process.