Velo3D Print Preparation Software Supports Larger Parts

Velo3D’s Flow 3.0 is the latest version of its print preparation software. It is designed to support larger models of parts manufactured on the company’s Sapphire XC (extra capacity) printer, which it says can produce parts that are up to 400% larger than the Sapphire printer.

Flow 3.0 also supports the scheduling of additional lasers to maximize the efficiency of the Sapphire XC’s eight 1,000 W lasers and increase productivity by up to 5 times compared to Velo3D’s Sapphire printer, the company says.

According to the company, the 3.0 release brings support for the large models that can be printed on Sapphire XC, warnings and guidance to customers during build preparation, along with tools for managing build preparation on clusters, Amazon Web Services and other improvements.

Velo3D’s Flow 3.0 print preparation software enables engineers to simply upload a traditional CAD file of a part they want to print, rather than having to spend additional resources designing the part for additive manufacturing (DfAM). By eliminating the need for DfAM, the company says customers are able to freely design the mission-critical parts they want and then print them with precision.

It is said the software accomplishes this by utilizing a generalized set of recipes to precisely prescribe and simulate the layer-by-layer build for the desired part. The software’s composer detects geometric features and applies the corresponding process to achieve that desired outcome. Additionally, the company says the software uses information from previous layers to inform the print strategy for subsequent layers, resulting in better parts and greater design freedom.

The print preparation software is designed to reliably generate and leverage meshes of models containing up to hundreds of millions of triangles. The capability is made possible by offloading the computation of larger files to Amazon Web Services. The customer sends a CAD file and receives back a compacted file that can be used on any printer to build the part.