Does preform use some sort of voxel technology for preparing prints? Is there a way to control print voxel resolution?
Hey there!
As far as I’m aware PreForm uses a fairly typical polygon focused architecture, but I’ve reached out to our software team to make sure I’m correct about that for you.
Voxels, or volume pixels, are basically square “bricks” of resin that are formed when printing with MSLA technology printers.
With an MSLA printer, each layers is exposed at one time through a mask in a LCD panel. Since the LCD panel is made of discrete pixels separated by a mesh-like mask, each pixel exposes a tiny square of UV light onto the resin. As the print progresses upwards, it creates the model out of tiny little “bricks”, voxels.
However, these pixels are very small, and the spacing between them is even smaller, so these voxels are actually attached to each other since the resin between them is inevitably cured as well.
A laser SLA printer like the Formlabs, actually draws the layers exposing continuous lines, no individual dots/pixels. For this reason, flat or near flat surfaces appear smooth like glass, whereas the same surface if it were made of voxels would show a grid pattern under high indemnification.
However, please understand that the human eye cannot distinguish those patterns without magnification. I have both a Form 1+ and a Photon printer and in another thread I showed some examples of voxels. Take a look here: