CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is based on and claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-138631, filed on Jul. 24, 2018, and Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-237473, filed on Dec. 19, 2018, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The disclosures discussed herein relate to a three-dimensional object shaping apparatus and a method for shaping a three-dimensional object.

2. Description of the Related Art

Three-dimensional object shaping methods (e.g., selective laser sintering and stereolithography) are known to cure a material (such as a thermoplastic resin, a metal, a photo-curable resin, etc.) by irradiation with light to deposit the cured material on a layer-by-layer basis to gradually form a three-dimensional object. Such three-dimensional object shaping methods typically employ the additive manufacturing technology. The additive manufacturing technology includes generating shape data of multiple layers from a shape of an object, and depositing multiple layers based on the generated shape data. In such a related art of additive manufacturing technology, since a three-dimensional shaping is performed by depositing layers based on two-dimensional shape data, the shaping process requires a procedure of initially performing two-dimensional laser scanning on a shaping surface, and subsequently moving the shaping surface together with a stage so as to form a next layer.

Since the two-dimensional laser scanning method typically uses galvano scanning or the like, which requires repeatedly accelerating or decelerating mirror surfaces, there is potential for improvement in terms of scanning speeds.

RELATED-ART DOCUMENTS

Patent Documents

[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent No. 4790264

[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent No. 5570330

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is made in light of the above-described point, and is intended to provide a technology to achieve both high accuracy and high speed shaping of three-dimensional objects.

According to an aspect of an embodiment, a three-dimensional object shaping apparatus is provided for forming an object with a desired shape by application of light onto a shaping surface or a material disposed on an already shaped layer in a three-dimensional space, the three-dimensional space being represented by a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system of XYZ. The three-dimensional object shaping apparatus includes

a light source configured to emit light;

a drive mechanism configured to move the shaping surface parallel to an XY plane in a Z axis direction;

an optical scanning unit configured to scan light emitted from the light source along a Y axis direction perpendicular to the Z axis; and

a rotation mechanism configured to rotate at least one of the optical scanning unit and the shaping surface relative to each other with respect to the Z axis as a rotation axis, wherein a pattern of the light to be applied to the shaping surface is controlled by a combination of a rotation of the shaping surface performed by the rotation mechanism and the scanning of the light performed by the optical scanning unit.

Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

