Helio Additive has secured a major investment and is on its way to revolutionizing slicing forever.
The Delaware-based startup company is developing an entirely new way of preparing 3D print jobs. The idea is to recognize that thermal and flow conditions are unique for each voxel in a 3D printed object, and this should be taken into account during printing.
This concept contrasts with today’s slicers that simply assume “everything is the same” as far as temperature goes within a print job. The truth is that it’s quite different in each scenario, and different actions should be taken.
Helio Additive’s Physics-Based Slicing Approach
Helio Additive CEO David Hartmann explains their approach in this short video:
Hartmann has a good point: attempts to increase print quality initially focused on improving the 3D printers themselves, and that did have some effect. Later, focus shifted to materials and the quality of their production.
These steps can only take one so far, and now, according to Hartmann, the focus should be on the software. It’s hard to disagree with him here.
Hartmann’s vision of a 3D print job is voxel-based. Imagine an individual voxel: it has neighbors, which emit or absorb heat, and also present mechanical forces. The Helio Additive concept is to use sophisticated software to consider all these separate voxel conditions to better prepare extrusion parameters during the print job.
It’s a physics-based slicing approach, quite unlike any other job preparation approach seen so far. The company has built a sophisticated simulation engine to explore the process.
Investment and Future Developments
It sounds very promising—and complex. So far, we haven’t really seen results from the software, but keep in mind that Helio Additive is very early in its lifecycle.
We previously learned that a key initial investor of Helio Additive was noted materials provider Polymaker, who saw this potential early on. Now, we’ve discovered that Helio Additive has raised US$1.55M in a new funding round.
Helio Additive explained the likely use of the new funds:
“The funding will be used to further develop and commercialize the company’s innovative simulation technology, which allows for a deeper understanding of the printing process at a voxel-level.”
And:
“The funding will be used to implement pilot projects and deploy Helio Additive’s technology in real-world applications.”
We’re looking forward to seeing the results of Helio Additive’s work in the near future, and we’re pretty sure we’re not the only ones watching this company.
Via Helio Additive
