3D PRINTING WITH CUSTOM SURFACE REFLECTANCE

摘要

A method for fabricating custom surface reflectance and spatially-varying bi-directional reflectance distribution functions (BDRFs or svBRDFs). The 3D printing method optimizes micro-geometry to produce a normal distribution function (NDF) that can be printed on surfaces with a 3D printer. Particularly, the method involves optimizing the micro-geometry for a wide range of analytic NDFs and simulating the effective reflectance of the resulting surface. Using the results of the simulation, the appearance of an input svBRDF can be reproduced. To this end, the micro-geometry is optimized in a data-driven fashion and distributed on the surface of the printed object. The methods were demonstrated to allow 3D printing svBRDF on planar samples with current 3D printing technology even with a limited set of printing materials, and the described methods have been shown to be naturally extendable to printing svBRDF on arbitrary shapes or 3D objects.

主权项

1. A 3D printing method, comprising:
providing a diffuse base layer; printing a layer of transparent material comprising a surface with a plurality of micro-structures, wherein the micro-structures are configured based on a 3D model defining a geometry corresponding to a numerical representation of a target reflectance; and forming a 3D printed object by attaching the layer of transparent material to the diffuse base layer with the micro-structures facing away from the diffuse base layer to define reflectance for the 3D printed object.