Conceptual Overview
The OpenVCAD project defines a parametric modeling language and compiler that can be used to express and export volumetric designs. The image below shows the volumetric design workflow that is provided by OpenVCAD. Designers express their objects using the OpenVCAD modeling language. These designs are compiled into an OpenVCAD tree that can be exported to various volumetric formats, such as PNG stacks for inkjet 3D-printing. The power of OpenVCAD is the material nodes that allow complex material transitioning, digital alloying, and image processing techniques to be applied to child geometry. This replaces the traditional 3D-printing workflow of repressing multiple materials using a composite of single material surface meshes. Similarly, using OpenVCAD designers can express objects that vary their composition internally such as lattice structures and meta-materials.
Using the modeling language we can express geometry and material composition efficiently in a single file. The following example shows OpenVCAD being used to design and compile a multi-material soft robotic actuator using functional grading and implicit geometry.
