SLA = Stereolithography
LCD = Liquid Crystal Display
DLP = Digital Light Processor
SLA is a process for producing 3D prints by selectively hardening a liquid (resin) into a solid. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, the mainstream commercial ones being the original (drawing the XY vectors with a laser beam or other point source of light), or hardening an entire layer at once using a raster imaging system such as LCD or DLP (both are commonly used in video projectors).
I have found the latter referred to as mSLA (masked stereolithography), which seems reasonable for an LCD (which blocks light) but slightly oblique for a DLP (which projects light). Nonetheless, both DLP- and LCD-based resin 3D printers work in the same way by using a series of raster images to harden the resin, as opposed to drawing vectors with a light spot, so can't be driven by a .gcode file, and this seems to be the purpose of a .ctb (Chitubox) file.
While reading up on this, I have discovered Phrozen regard "SLA" as meaning specifically a vector resin 3D printer. Anyone know whether this is a general distinction, or is it just Phrozen saying that?
Can we agree that "SLA" refers to the general process, and not a specific implementation? Can we agree that "mSLA" refers to raster forms of SLA (ie LCD or DLP)?
Can we also agree to adopt "vSLA" as referring to vector forms of SLA?
SLA / LCD / DLP
Moderator: CrazyIvan