A study of stereolithography file errors and repair. Part 1. Generic solution

The most commonly used input to a rapid prototyping (RP) system is thede facto stereolithography file (STL). Several problems plague these STL files owing to the very nature of STL files and the non-robustness of commercial CAD system model tessellators. The consequences of not correcting these errors are detrimental to the creation of the intended prototype. These are highlighted in the paper.In Part 1 of two papers, a description of all STL-files-related errors is given. The paper also proposed a generic solution to solve one of the major problems in the proper creation of a prototype, that is, the problem of missing facets.Part 2 deals with special cases of errors associated with the STL files. The performance evaluation of the proposed solution is also given.