Abstract: In order to meet the demands for hollowed prototypes in casting and rapid prototype manufacturing, a new hollowing method in rapid prototyping is presented. According to the part’s Stereolithography models and slicing information, plane offsetting along slicing direction and contour offsetting are employed to perform the hollowing operation, which can reduce the difficulty in hollowing Stereolithography models with complex surfaces. Adopting this method, hollowing process is dramatically simplified and the efficiency is improved greatly. This method is verified by practical engineering case, which shows that this hollowing operation can obviously reduce prototype’s building time and cost.

Key words: Contour offsetting, Hollowing, Rapid prototyping