Co-optimization of color and mechanical properties by volumetric voxel control

Controlling the composition of individual voxels allows for a co-optimization of 3D-printed part properties such as color and mechanical ones. As a result, choices can be made continuously about how to use a given system’s materials, from favoring mechanical strength to giving preference to color variety. A processing pipeline is presented here that determines the composition of individual print-resolution voxels and exercises control over them in a volumetrically probabilistic way. As a result, it allows for all possible at-voxel contents (liquids, powders, system parameters, etc) to be arranged with all possible local volumetric probabilities. Results are shown here for applying such an approach to a prototype printing testbed for controlling color and mechanical properties as well as their combined domain to produce mechanically strong color parts.