New computational technique advances color 3-D printing process
Working with researchers at Zhejiang University in China, Changxi Zheng, assistant professor of computer science at Columbia Engineering, has developed a technique that enables hydrographic printing, a widely used industrial method for transferring color inks on a thin film to the surface of manufactured 3D objects, to color these surfaces with the most precise alignment ever attained. Using a new computational method they developed to simulate the printing process, Zheng and his team have designed a model that predicts color film distortion during hydrographic immersion, and uses it to generate a colored film that guarantees exact alignment of the surface textures to the object. The research will be presented at SIGGRAPH 2015, August 9 to 13, in Los Angeles.