ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,539,663, issued on Feb. 3.
"Surface graphics for extrusion additive manufacturing" was invented by Frank McKiel (Colorado Springs, Colo.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In the formation of a solid object by progressively depositing extruded materials accordance with a data model for shape of the object, a mechanism is disclosed for combining shape-related data with one or more sets of graphics data to produce alternative perimeter toolpaths that, when followed by an extrusion deposition system, both build the modeled shape and render the pattern content of the graphics data on an outer surface of the object. The disclosed teachings provide...