A form of rapid prototyping involving the building of solid plastic objects from a CAD file by projecting a laser-generated beam of ultraviolet radiation onto the surface of a vat of photosensitive resin.
A rapid prototyping process that fabricates a part layerwise by hardening a photopolymer with a guided laser beam. Stereolithography is frequently used as a general term for "rapid prototyping," but this is neither precise nor correct.
A rapid prototyping process that manufactures a part by depositing layers of a liquid photopolymer that is hardened with a laser. The term is often used interchangeably with rapid prototyping.
(n) A rapid prototyping technique in which the model is first decomposed into a series of thin layers and then reconstructed. A pair of light beams moves a focal point about in a vat of photosensitive polymer, tracing one layer at a time. Once one layer of polymer has been hardened by the light beams, the light beams trace the next layer up.
Stereolithography is one of the more commonly used rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping technologies. It is considered to provide high accuracy and good surface finish. The devices used to perform stereolithography are called SLAs or Stereolithography Apparatus(es).
