SGCL: A B-Rep-Based Geometry Modeling Language in MATLAB for Designing 3D-Printable Medical Robots

Abstract

The additive manufacturing technology greatly shortens the design and fabrication period of a complex robotic system, as the entire system can be once printed in a short time without complicated assembly process. To keep up with the fast development of this new technology, an efficient tool for constructing compact and 3D-printable surface models is highly desirable. In this paper, we present a novel boundary-representation-based geometry modeling language, the Solid Geometry Coding Language (SGCL), for the efficient surface modeling of 3D-printable medical robots. The proposed language is implemented in MATLAB, based on our previously developed modeling toolbox, the Solid Geometry Library. The basic data structures and modeling syntax of the language are illustrated in detail. To demonstrate the performance of the SGCL language, a modeling case as well as the 3D-printed prototype is presented. Furthermore, the proposed language could also be used as an open platform for developing optimization-based automatic synthesis methods for 3D-printed medical instruments and robots.