A supply part for supplying resin, a smoothing part for smoothing the
resin, and an objective lens for exposing the smoothed resin to light are
provided in separate positions within substantially the same horizontal
plane, and a modeling part is movable by a horizontal drive mechanism
under the three above-mentioned components. For processing in the three
above-mentioned components, the modeling part is moved to positions
immediately under the three above-mentioned components in order by the
horizontal drive mechanism. Thus, the modeling part is brought as close
to the three above-mentioned components as possible for processing. The
exposure is performed, with the objective lens fixed to a base body.
Exposure light is focused onto a resin layer on a modeling base, and the
light reflected from the resin layer is received by the objective lens,
directed by a beam splitter toward an image surface optical system and
received as an image by a CCD camera. During the exposure, the directed
exposure light serves as illumination light which enables an operator to
check whether current focus is achieved on the surface of the resin
layer. During a time interval between the completion of the exposure of
the resin layer to light and the execution of the exposure of the next
resin layer to light, the fine adjustment of the vertical position of a
stage is made, whereby the fine adjustment of the focus position is made
in accordance with the result of observation using a monitor. This
prevents the decrease in modeling accuracy for the subsequent resin
layers, thereby to hold the modeling accuracy for the entire model
higher, thereby improving the yield and productivity of models. These
provide a stereolithography apparatus which attains a resin layer
thickness of 10 .mu.m and an exposure resolution of 2 .mu.m and is
preferred for micromachining.