Pushing the Limits of 3D Color Printing

Abstract

Accurate color reproduction is important in many applications of 3D printing, from design prototypes to 3D color copies or portraits. Although full color is available via other technologies, multi-jet printers have greater potential for graphical 3D printing, in terms of reproducing complex appearance properties. However, to date these printers cannot produce full color, and doing so poses substantial technical challenges, from the shear amount of data to the translucency of the available color materials. In this paper, we propose an error diffusion halftoning approach to achieve full color with multi-jet printers, which operates on multiple isosurfaces or layers within the object. We propose a novel traversal algorithm for voxel surfaces, which allows the transfer of existing error diffusion algorithms from 2D printing. The resulting prints faithfully reproduce colors, color gradients and finescale details.

The development of a 3D colour reproduction system of digital impressions with an intraoral scanner and a 3D printer: a preliminary study

“…The 3D printer employed here uses a similar CMYK colour model but with an additional white base material. Moreover, a CMYK colour model usually has a smaller gamut than RGB colour model and the CIE standard, which means that certain colours cannot be produced by the 3D printers 17 . Despite these shortcomings, the method employed here did decrease the colour difference of the reproduction result, and indicates the potential of further optimization.…”

Computational design of nanostructural color for additive manufacturing

“…Simulating a grid of binary steps with height difference ≈ 100 nm by using wave optics, Levin et al [2013] fabricated surface patterns with a monochrome reflectance behavior dependent on the incident light direction. For reproducing color and texture with 3D printers, methods for spatial dithering [Brunton et al 2015] and optimization of discrete voxel distributions [Babaei et al 2017;Elek et al 2017] have been investigated. Inverse problems also have been targeted for fabricating desired subsurface scattering effects from a fixed set of translucent materials [Dong et al 2010;Hašan et al 2010] or mixtures of inks [Papas et al 2013].…”

Optimization of Vibration Characteristics of Fused Deposition Modeling Color 3D Printer Based on Modal and Power Spectrum Method

“…On the one hand, the accuracy of the 3D printer has always been its problem and limits its development to a certain extent due to its unique printing mode [8][9][10], especially when color products are printed, accuracy deviations are easily detected due to the existence of color boundaries, so the FDM color 3D printer requires higher accuracy [11]. On the other hand, with the generation and iterative improvement of the color multi-nozzle device, the weight of whole nozzle is increased compared with that of the single nozzle [12]. The vibration characteristic of the nozzle is one of key factors that affect the printing accuracy.…”