The Clemson Intelligent Design Environment for Stereolithography (CIDES 2.0) has been developed at Clemson University. CIDES 2.0 is a user-centered interface between the CAD systems and the RP systems, primarily the SLA. It is designed to allow the user the choice of using either functions within CIDES 2.0 or to transfer files and use the software supplied with the SLA. With CIDES 2.0, the RP user has the capability to work with STL files independently of any CAD package.
CIDES 2.0 is designed to provide a variety of tools which are valuable to the users of RP systems, including the ability to view and modify STL files, generate supports, and slice STL files into SLI files for use on the SLA. It also provides the ability to view SLI and V files. Futhernmore, CIDES 2.0 offers additional translation capabilities that make it valuable for other RP processes
CIDES 2.0 is designed to be easy to use, and is therefore completely menu driven. It has the flavor of a CAD package though not the full functionality.
STL files
Read ASCII and Binary
Rotate, pan and zoom via mouse
Flat shading
"Disco" lighting
Solid lighting
Rotate, pan and zoom via mouse
Selectively display vector types
Run up and down layers
Move part to a specific location Move
part a distance along any of the coordinate directions Rotate
the part about the gloabal corrdinate axis Modify
the size of the part Mirror
part about x or y axis
Verifcation of STL fileDetects and corrects inverted facets and bad normals
Indicates holes
Sorts the triangles of the STL file
Generates support structure for part Slices part Slices
support Calculate volume, time and cost of part Chose
optimal orientation
Adaptive slicing Pack
the build space
NURBS-based slicing CIDES 2.0 User's Manual