Abstract
Near-net shape manufacturing (NNS) processes such as casting or forging create discrete parts close to the desired size and shape of final parts that are then further processed. However, near-net shape manufactured parts have homogeneous material properties with limited geometric complexities which typically does not allow for optimizing for overall material usage. Filling the surface boundary of a part with primitive solids such as cubes can accomplish near-net shape packing of its volume. Previous methods such as top-down voxelization with octrees, depend on the size of the object, and achieving a desired representational accuracy or resolution can become time intensive. This thesis presents a novel approach by constructing a maximally inscribed cubic skeleton. Progressively, remaining regions between placed cubes and the surface boundary are packed with cubes at the next level growing from the faces of cubes at previous levels. Vertices and sizes of the latter cubes are found by creating rays from the centers of previous cube faces and locating intersections with mesh surface boundaries. Results of the algorithm are presented with case studies to illustrate versatility. Potential benefits of the approach allow for parallel manufacturing to shorten build time and potential variability and optimization of material usage.