Hi, I'm Tianyu

Multi-axis 3D Printing, Computational Geometry, Robotics

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Digital Manufacturing Lab at the University of Manchester (UoM). I earned my PhD degree from the same group at the UoM, supervised by Prof. Charlie C. L. Wang and Dr. Zekai Murat Kilic. My Master’s degree is from Prof. Wanhua Zhao’s Machine Tool Research Group at Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) and further had 1 year of industry experience at Shenzhen Inovance Technology. I received my ​B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC).

printing_result

My main research topic is Multi-axis Advance Manufacturing. As a researcher in the field of advanced manufacturing, I’ve developed a computational pipeline to support additive and subtractive manufacturing especially the mesh-based curved fabrication which is composed of volume decomposition, toolpath generation, and motion planning which are fitting for different multi-axis machines, e.g. robot cell and CNC.

This fundamental structure of this pipeline is built and it is verified by research peers and industry collaborations. Now it is under intensive development and refinement. This pipeline enables the advanced fabrication cell to operate more smartly and efficiently in manufacturing applications. The basic knowledge underpinning my research includes optimization theory, geometric computing and processing.

Selected Publication​

A full list of the publications can be accessed on Google Scholar

  1. Liu, T., Zhang, T., Chen, Y., Huang, Y. and Wang, C.C., 2024. Neural Slicer for Multi-Axis 3D Printing. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 43(4), pp. 1-15. (First co-author, Project page)

  2. Zhang, T., Huang, Y., Kukulski P., Dutta, N., Fang, G., Wang, C.C., 2023. Support Generation for Robot-Assisted 3D Printing with Curved Layers. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp.12338-12344. (Open-Sourced)

  3. Dutta, N., Zhang, T., Fang, G., Yigit, I.E. and Wang, C.C., 2023. Vector field based volume peeling for multi-axis machining. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering (JCISE), pp.1-13. (Best Paper Award - ASME IDETC/CIE 2023 Conference, Open-Sourced, First co-author, Project page)

  4. Zhang , T., Fang , G., Huang, Y., Dutta, N., Lefebvre, S., Kilic, Z.M. and Wang, C.C., 2022. S3-slicer: A general slicing framework for multi-axis 3D printing. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 41(6), pp.1-15. (Open-Sourced , Best Paper Award - SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 Technical Papers)

  5. Zhang , T., Chen, X., Fang, G., Tian, Y. and Wang, C.C., 2021. Singularity-aware motion planning for multi-axis additive manufacturing. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL), 6(4), pp.6172-6179. (Open-Sourced , Finalist of Best Student Paper Award)

Collaborative Projects​

  1. Broetje-Automation GmbH - Vector-field guided tool-path planning for 3D printing with CCF (Completed)
  2. 5axismaker - Toolpath algorithms for 5XCAM hybrid manufacturing (Completed)
  3. Venox - Inverse kinematics and toolpath planning for V-REX (Ongoing)
  4. NCC(National Composites Centre) - Nonplanar Continuous Fibre AM (CFAM) design tool evaluation (Ongoing)