Advanced Smoothing for Voxel-based Topologically Optimized 3D Models

Smoothing algorithms are used for mesh refinement and to remove undesired surface. This numerical procedure is recommended and applied on triangulated file coming from 3D scanners or Topology optimization designs based on voxel representation before the optimized structure is manufactured by Additive Manufacturing technologies. In literature, there are several available algorithms, but many of them suffer from mesh shrinkage and do not give to the designer easy procedures to select regions which do not need the application of the smoothing procedure as holes or flat surfaces. For this reason, an improved vertex-based algorithm is presented in this work along with a case study to prove its performances compared with existent algorithms. The algorithm confirms to be efficient and useful. However, user’s intervention is required to guide the procedure to get proper results.