Transferring unit cell based tissue scaffold design to solid freeform fabrication

Designing for the freeform fabrication of heterogeneous tissue scaffold is always a challenge in Computer Aided Tissue Engineering. The difficulties stem from two major sources: 1) limitations in current CAD systems to assembly unit cells as building blocks to form complex tissue scaffolds, and 2) the inability to generate tool paths for freeform fabrication of unit cell assemblies. To overcome these difficulties, we have developed an abstract model based on skeletal representation and associated computational methods to assemble unit cells into an optimized structure. Additionally we have developed a process planning technique based on internal architecture pattern of unit cells to generate tool paths for freeform fabrication of tissue scaffold. By modifying our optimization process, we are able to transfer an optimized design to our fabrication system via our process planning technique.