3D PRINTING AND ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Volume 00, Number 00, 2018

ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/3dp.2017.0124

Support Optimization for Flat Features via Path Planning

in Additive Manufacturing
Jingchao Jiang, Jonathan Stringer, and Xun Xu
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Abstract

The emergence of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies (also known as 3D printing) promotes the reduction
of material consumption in terms of avoiding the repeated fabrication of dies as well as comparatively high material
efficiency. However, despite widespread application and evident advantages over traditional manufacturing tech-
niques, AM still suffers from redundant support material usage when printing parts with overhanging features. In
this article, a support generation method through print path planning is proposed for the first time, with the aim of
reducing support material consumption in AM of parts with flat features. Print path can significantly influence the
support usage when considering the longest printable bridge length. Two parts are printed by our new method with
much less support consumption than general line and grid support generation methods. The results show the
effectiveness of this new support generation method in terms of both reducing the support consumption and finish
surface deterioration, enabling AM to be a more environmental friendly and sustainable manufacturing technique.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, support, path planning, printable bridge length

Introduction support for extrusion-based processes where extreme over-

Additive manufacturing (AM) is defined by the joint ISO/
ASTM terminology standard to be the ‘‘process of joining
materials to make parts from 3D model data, usually layer
upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing and for-
mative manufacturing methodologies.’’1 The technologies
represented by AM are the 3D analogue to ubiquitous 2D
printers. This similarity of AM to 2D printing has given rise to
the alternate common name of 3D printing. Three-dimensional
printing technologies have been rapidly developed and widely
applied in the fields of aerospace, engineering, medical ap-
plications, and marine. The salient part of the definition is use
of a computer to translate a solid model into a real part. The
manufacturing process starts from the bottom of a product and
continues successively layer by layer to the top. This leads to
problems for overhangs that cannot be printed as there is no
supporting layer beneath them.2,3 Support structures have to be
simultaneously printed and then manually discarded after
printing, thus wasting the material used for support and in-
creasing the cost for postprocessing; it is inevitable to print
hangs exist.
To reduce the usage of support structures within AM, pre-
vious research has looked at optimizing both the part geome-
try4 and print orientation.5–10 This approach may be of limited
use when either the geometry or the orientation is constrained
by other design considerations. As the use of AM technology
for final parts increases, these other considerations, such as a
tightly specified geometry or optimizing print orientation for
mechanical properties, will likely take precedence. It is also
possible to optimize the support structure itself, with re-
search focusing on the use of material efficient cellular struc-
tures,7,11,12 3D irregular honeycomb structures,13 branching or
tree-like structures,14,15 and bridge-based supports.16 Such
approaches have successfully shown significant reductions in
both printing time and material usage.
The use of multiple materials, in particular one that can be
selectively removed from a printed part, has also generated
considerable interest. The material to be selectively removed
is chosen to have adequate mechanical properties to support
the object during printing, while being soluble in a relatively

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

1
 2 JIANG ET AL.
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FIG. 1. An illustration of process planning in an AM processes. AM, additive manufacturing.

benign solvent for ease of removal. While most prevalent
strategies are in polymer AM processes,17–20 it has been
shown to be an effective strategy in metal AM processes as
well.21,22 The multi-material approach is most useful in re-
ducing the cost of postprocessing, as it eliminates most of the
costs associated with mechanical removal of the support
structures. It does not remove any costs associated with
material usage, however, and may even increase these costs
dependent on the cost of the sacrificial material. Current work
looking at the use of non-Newtonian fluid baths as a means of
support structure presents an intriguing method of further
reducing this cost,23,24 although the range of material that is
compatible with such a bath may be limited.
Apart from all the methods proposed above, another po-
tential way to reduce the support waste and cost is by print
path planning when planning the AM process. Process
planning plays the role as a bridge between AM machines and
virtual models by transferring the models into code that can
guide and control the hardware. The process planning of
different AM techniques usually has similar procedures and
can be divided into four stages: print orientation determina-
tion, support generation, slicing, and path planning. Each

FIG. 2. Different printed PBLs in different print parameters. (a–f) corresponds to a–f in Table 1. PBLs, printable bridge lengths.
 SUPPORT OPTIMIZATION VIA PATH PLANNING 3

Table 1. Experimental Settings of Parts

Printed in Figure 2
Print Cooling fan Print
temperature (C) speed (rpm) speed (mm/s)
a 190 250 5
b 190 250 95
c 190 0 35
d 190 250 35
e 220 250 35
f 175 250 35

stage will affect material use, print time, and finished quality
from different aspects. Figure 1 shows an illustration of
process planning in an AM processes. Based on the deter-
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mined orientation, overhangs are recognized, and corre-

sponding support structures generated, which would be
removed in the postprocessing phase. The team of Jin has
carried out a lot of research on process planning for reducing
the material usage or improving the final quality of part.25–29
However, little research has been performed on path planning
Dimensions of PBL model in Figure 2.

for reducing support usage. Generally speaking, the support

generation comes before print path generation in a 3D
printing work flow. In this article, the concept of generating
support based on the generated print path is proposed for the
first time, thus combining stages of slicing and print path
generation as one interactive stage. A support generation
method based on the longest printable bridge length (PBL)
perpendicular to the print path is introduced, aimed at re-
ducing support material consumption in AM of parts with flat
features. The details will be illustrated in the following sec-
tions. Two different parts were fabricated to verify the pro-
posed method and the results show its effectiveness and
feasibility in reducing the support consumption and deterio-
ration of surface quality, enabling AM to be a more envi-
ronmental friendly and sustainable manufacturing technique.
FIG. 3.

The Concept of PBL and Path Planning

For easier understanding of the proposed support genera-
tion method, background about PBL and path planning are
illustrated first.

Printable bridge length

PBL means the longest length a 3D printer can print (with
satisfactory finish quality) without support structure under-
neath it. During a printing process, there are many factors
(print temperature, print speed, solidification speed, layer
thickness) that may influence PBL. Figure 2 shows some
printed bridges with different lengths under different process
parameters and the same print path direction. Kossel Delta 3D
printer was used to print these parts. The build area shape of
this Delta 3D printer is circular with maximum width of
180 mm, maximum depth of 180 mm, and maximum height of
300 mm. The nozzle diameter of this printer is 0.4 mm. Poly-
lactic acid (PLA) was used for printing these parts. The di-
mensions of this model are shown in Figure 3 with depth of
1.0 mm. The exact experimental settings are shown in Table 1.
As shown in Figure 2, PBL can be achieved in various
lengths when changing process parameters. At the same time,
 4 JIANG ET AL.
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FIG. 4. Procedure of proposed support generation method by considering the longest PBL.

the characteristics (strength, solidity, quality, etc.) of printed
parts can also be influenced by these process parameters.30,31
For satisfying the requirements of a product, the process
parameters will need to be in a certain range. In this case, the
longest satisfied PBL can be experimentally tested according
to the required process parameters. And the longest PBL can
be accordingly integrated into the support generation method
for reducing support material usage and cost in terms of the
flat features. For example, Figure 4 shows a concept of
generating support for a cubic part based on the longest PBL
when the print path direction is as shown in this figure. First,
detect the bottom of flat features in 3D models and obtain the
contour. Second, generate support of level 1 based on the
longest PBL perpendicular to the print path direction. Finally,
generate support of level 2 by using the longest PBL distance
for support of level 1. This means that the volume of support
consumption will be changed when the print path direction is
altered.
Path planning
For a specific layer, the areas to be filled can be achieved
through many ways according to different purposes. The
team of Jin has carried out a lot of research for the aim of
reducing the material usage or improving the final quality by
improving path planning.25–29 Generally, most of the 3D
printing processes are using two patterns for generating print
path. One is direction-parallel method and another is contour

FIG. 5. (a, b) Two general path patterns (start point and end point can be changed) and different print path strategies in direction-
parallel method.
 SUPPORT OPTIMIZATION VIA PATH PLANNING
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FIG. 6. Procedure for obtaining the total usage of support
in different print path directions.
method, as shown in Figure 5. In this study, only direction-
parallel path is suitable and can be used for applying the
longest PBL for generating support structures. Therefore, the
path planning in this article is based on direction-parallel path
in different rotations, as shown in Figure 5. As can be
imagined, the support usage may change when print path
direction changes.
Proposed Support Generation Method
In the previous section, PBL and path planning have been
introduced. Based on these backgrounds, our support gener-
ation method can be divided into seven steps. The illustra-
tions of these seven steps are using an example part shown in
Figure 6.
Step 1: Input 3D model and set the longest PBL = t ac-
cording to PBL test experiments.
Step 2: Obtain the flat features that need support in 3D
models and mark these areas as Area(support).
5
FIG. 7. Flowchart of seeking the optimal print path direction.
Step 3: Put the obtained flat area in a Cartesian coordinate
system and set print path direction angle as h. h is defined
as the angle size between the print path and x-axis in this
Cartesian coordinate system, as shown in step 3 of Figure 6.
Step 4: For ensuring the printed quality, all contours need
to have support underneath it except for the contour that is
parallel to the print path. Calculate the total area between
the contour (except that is parallel to the print path) and
its projection contour on its corresponding bottom sur-
face, as shown in step 4 of Figure 6. The total area can be
calculated as follows:
ZxC ZxC
S ¼ f1 (x)dx f2 (x)dx, (1)
xB xB
where f1 (x) is the contour of Area(support) expanded in y–z
plane, whereas f2 (x) is its corresponding projected contour on
the bottom surface expanded in y–z plane, as shown in step 4
of Figure 6. Thus, the support volume for supporting contour
(Vcontour ) can be obtained as:
Vcontour ¼ SDnozzle , (2)
where Dnozzle is the nozzle diameter, which is the smallest
printable width in a 3D printing process.
Step 5: Calculate the support volume for supporting the
inside area.
Find the most left (A) and right (D) points on the outside
contour of flat area when providing the print path as horizontal.
 6 JIANG ET AL.
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FIG. 8. Dimensions of tested two parts (unit: mm).

Start from A, draw lines (l1 , l2 , l3 . . . . . . ln ) perpendicular to "  #   n   

print path every t distance until the distance between the point n m Dnozzle 2 Dnozzle 2
D and ln is equal to or less than t. Analyze each line for cal- Vinterior ¼ + + hnm · p · þ + ln · p · :
1 1 2 1 2
culating support volume. Taking ln as an example, ln can also
be divided to Ø ltn ø printable bridges. Thus, there need be (3)
m ¼ Ø ltn ø þ 1 support struts of level 2 underneathln. The length
of each strut of level 2 is marked as hnm . Hence, the total Step 6: Based on the above analysis, the total volume of
volume of support for supporting interior Area(support) can be support needed when the print path direction angle is set
obtained as: at h can be calculated as:

FIG. 9. Generated supports and corresponding optimal print path strategies.

 SUPPORT OPTIMIZATION VIA PATH PLANNING
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FIG. 10. Printed ‘‘T’’ parts (a) and ‘‘step cylinder’’ parts (b) by different support methods and corresponding support
consumption and Ra.
V¼Vcontour þVinterior : (4)
Step 7: Change the size of h (0 £ h < 180), obtain the
lowest V, and get the corresponding optimal print path
direction hoptimal .
The algorithm for finding the best print path direction that
consumes the least support is shown in Figure 7. The value of
sum in this algorithm can be set at any value as long as it is
large enough. After obtaining the optimal print path direc-
tion, this print path can be integrated into slicer, thus gener-
ating corresponding support based on our method for saving
more material and cost.
Demonstration and Discussion
To verify the proposed support generation method, two-
part models were tested on a Kossel Delta 3D printer. The
build area shape of this Delta 3D printer is circular with
7
maximum width of 180 mm, maximum depth of 180 mm, and
maximum height of 300 mm. The nozzle diameter of this
printer is 0.4 mm. PLA was used for printing these two parts.
The 3D views and dimensions of these two parts are shown in
Figure 8.
For obtaining the longest PBL in this Kossel Delta 3D
printer, experiments were carried out first. The experiments
were conducted with the process parameters of print tem-
perature of 190C, print speed of 20 mm/s, cooling fan speed
of 250 rpm, fill density of 30%, and layer thickness of 0.2 mm
(providing that these process parameters are required for
some product with satisfactory quality). The results show that
the longest PBL can be achieved at 2.0 mm when setting the
deformation tolerance within 0.15 mm. Therefore, t can be set
at 2 in the algorithm shown in Figure 7, and the corresponding
dimensions can be set as shown in Figure 8. The results show
that the lowest volume of support usage is when setting print
path, as shown in Figure 8. Figure 9 shows the generated
supports and the corresponding optimal print path strategies
with some sliced layers.
 8 JIANG ET AL.
For comparison, another two support methods provided
by slicer software Cura 15.04 were also used for fabricating
the same parts. The results of these three support methods are
shown in Figure 10. As can be seen, our new support gen-
eration method only consumes 0.4 g support material for the
‘‘T’’ part, whereas line and grid support methods spend 2.1
and 2.3 g, respectively. For the ‘‘step cylinder’’ part, our
support method can save three times as much support mate-
rial as general support methods. In addition, it is easier to
remove the support from our method than line and grid
methods. In terms of the surface quality after removing the
supports, all these three methods leave minor marks on the
supported surface. However, our method leaves the least
mark area on the surface as our method is based on the longest
PBL and has the smallest contact area. This may help reduce
the effort on postprocessing and it is easier to be dealt with.
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The average surface roughness (Ra) has been measured in
different support methods by SURFTEST SJ-210, which is a
surface roughness measuring tester from Mitutoyo Corpora-
tion.32 As shown in Figure 10, our support strategy has the
lowest surface roughness due to the least contact area.
Conclusions
In this article, a method of generating support based on
print path planning is proposed based on the longest PBL,
aimed at reducing support material consumption in AM of
parts with flat features. Traditionally, the print path genera-
tion comes after slicing part into layers in the process plan-
ning of AM. However, print path is considered before slicing
part into layers in this study as print path can make a great
contribution to the support usage when integrating the longest
PBL into a support generation process. T-shaped and stepped
concentric cylinder parts were used as test models for vali-
dating the proposed method. Parts are fabricated by three
support methods (line, grid, and our proposed methods). The
results show that, for the T-shaped part, line support con-
sumes 5.25 times as much support material as our method and
grid support consumes 5.75 times. As can also be seen from
the stepped concentric cylinder part, our new support gen-
eration method can significantly save more material, enabling
AM to be a more environmentally friendly and sustainable
manufacturing technique. In addition, this method can also
reduce the deterioration on the finished surface as it leaves
less marks, thus reducing the effort for postprocessing.
Acknowledgments
Helps from the engineering librarians at the University of
Auckland are highly appreciated. The authors are also
grateful for the advices from the Laboratory for Industry 4.0
and Smart Manufacturing Systems members.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
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Address correspondence to:
Jonathan Stringer
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Auckland
20 Symonds Street
Auckland 1142
New Zealand
E-mail: j.stringer@auckland.ac.nz