Intent-Based Material Extrusion 3D Printing

Abstract

The graduation project is carried out as a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and Ultimaker. Ultimaker B.V. is a 3D printer company located in Geldermalsen, The Netherlands. Users of 3D printers are presented with a multitude of action possibilities. However, these action possibilities are not yet translated into easy to understand controls that match user intentions. The goal of this project is to design a means for the user to match the intended outcome with the printed result. Eight design opportunities for intent-based 3D printing approaches are defined based on desk research and user experiments. The desk research focuses on the material extrusion process, the 3D printing workflow, user groups, market trends and intent facilitation techniques. The user experiments analyse the role of user intent in the 3D printing workflow. The eight defined design opportunities are: goal-oriented print preparation, reducing the knowledge threshold, component level control, promotion of 3D printing affordances, management of 3D printers, user education, intent communication and feedback. Ideation is applied to these design opportunities to create three concepts, of which the highest scoring concept is further developed. The proposed design is a software plugin for the Cura engine based on product configuration systems used in retail. The software architecture consists of six modules that work together to analyse the model geometry, retrieve requirements and wishes based on the communicated intent, recommend profile selections and user actions, validate the print preparation process and guide the user towards ideal printer configurations and process parameters. By using the 3MF file format, models are separated into several components, which can be configured individually by means of ‘component profiles’. Component profiles are developed by Ultimaker, companies and individual users to present a subset of print settings that facilitate an intended 3D printed result. A software plugin for Cura 3.3.1 is developed as a prototype for testing the designed intent-based 3D printing approach. Due to the scope of this research, testing is limited to component-level manipulations and control of goal-oriented settings. From the user test, it can be concluded that print preparation using component profiles significantly improves user guidance and the educative experience of print preparation. Especially beginners are more confident that their configuration leads to the desired part qualities. The objective plugin reduces the feeling of control, but even expert users show confidence in the final result. Within the plugin users can better voice their intentions through selecting component profiles. These profiles present meaningful feedback to users that both guides and educates them. Of course the realized plugin has its limitations: it does not use intent information that can be included in the supplied model files, nor does it offer all the designed guiding features. Even though these limitations exist, this study represents a step forward in the journey from process-driven to intent-based 3D printing.