PrintabilityTool

A user-friendly interactive tool that determines the printability score.

The tool calculates the part characteristic score (PF) for a part to be printed without failure and the final printability score.

• The user specifies the dimensions of the critical geometric features of a mesh.
• The user specifies (optionally) a prediction for the dimensional error.
• The system supports many instances for each part characteristic category.
• All data are displayed in a tree structure from where the user can interactively remove any of them.
• The tool can store a specific configuration given by the user as a .json file.
• There is a warning when the probability for successful printing is less than 50%.

Reference

https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-11-2022-0402

Dependencies

• Windows 10
• Python 3.6 or later
• Numpy
• PyQT5

Run Printability Computation tool

python PrintabilityTool.py

How to use it

• Give inputs:

Set critical dimension and dimensional error, then press ‘Add’ button next to them.

• Select technology and application:

Technologies: Fused Deposit Modeling, Material jetting or Binder jetting.

Applications: Biomedical, Mechanical or Artistic.

• Delete one input:

Right click on this input at the tree structure. Press ‘Delete’.

• Delete all inputs:

Press the trash button.

• Save profile:

Press file button then press ‘Save profile’. It saves all inputs in a .json file.

• Load profile:

Press file button then press ‘Load profile’. It loads all inputs from a .json file.

Printability Computation source code

printabilityComputation.py

• computePrintability (data, technology, application)

Args
Dictionary data	Refers to CAD’s dimensions for each design characteristic. Data must be a Python dictionary with a specific format.
Int technology	Defines the 3d printing technology among three: 0 (FDM), 1 (Material jetting) or 2 (Binder jetting).
Int application	Specifies the use case of the model: 0 (Biomedical), 1 (Mechanical) or 2 (Artistic).

Returns
Float output	% Pintability Score

• computePFperChar (data, technology, application)

Args
Dictionary data	Refers to CAD’s dimensions for each design characteristic. Data must be a Python dictionary with a specific format.
Int technology	Defines the 3d printing technology among three: 0 (FDM), 1 (Material jetting) or 2 (Binder jetting).
Int application	Specifies the use case of the model: 0 (Biomedical), 1 (Mechanical) or 2 (Artistic).

Returns
Float output	% Part Characteristic Score (PF_score)

• globalPrintability (data,technology,application)

Args
Dictionary data	Refers to CAD’s dimensions for each design characteristic. Data must be a Python dictionary with a specific format.
Int technology	Defines the 3d printing technology among three: 0 (FDM), 1 (Material jetting) or 2 (Binder jetting).
Int application	Specifies the use case of the model: 0 (Biomedical), 1 (Mechanical) or 2 (Artistic).

Returns
Float output	Global Probability (PG)

• partCharacteristicPrintability (data, technology, application)

Args
Dictionary data	Refers to CAD’s dimensions for each design characteristic. Data must be a Python dictionary with a specific format.
Int technology	Defines the 3d printing technology among three: 0 (FDM), 1 (Material jetting) or 2 (Binder jetting).
Int application	Specifies the use case of the model: 0 (Biomedical), 1 (Mechanical) or 2 (Artistic).

Returns
Float output	Part Characteristic Probability (PF)