Modelling of complex fractal objects for aesthetic product development

Fractal geometry has been use for modelling natural objects that cannot be described by Euclidean geometry, and is also employed in aesthetic product design. However, the contemporary Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) systems are well developed only for semi-analytical and free-form objects, and they cannot deal with aesthetic appealing objects efficiently. As a result, new data structure or representation model has to be introduced in order to model and process the fractal geometry effectively in Euclidean-based CAD/CAM system. In this paper an algorithm is proposed for generating a 3D complex fractal from its mathematical models. To represent the 3D complex fractal object model in a CAD system, a voxel-based model is introduced. To fabricate a physical fractal object, Layered Manufacturing (LM) technology is employed. The geometrical information of the fractal object is extracted from its voxel-based model and the LM tool path can be generated accordingly. Applying the proposed algorithm, the fabrication of a fractal object can be realised.