Posted on Leave a comment

3D Printed Halftone

I had an idea to 3D print a halftone image by making a grid of holes where the larger holes would be brighter halftone pixels, and the smaller holes would be darker ones, and then I’d light it from behind. I tried several approaches, including one performed after I made this video, and they all failed. Blender 3D was not up to the task of doing a giant boolean operation, and the P5.js SVG library was not up to the task of drawing all the outline squares that I needed. So, I resorted to printing a background (just a large, white rectangular slab) and switching filaments to print the halftone pixels on top in a different color (black squares).

I have a lot of ideas for variations, like a non-solid background, and slicing a larger image and printing it out in pieces. Ultimately, I still want to try my original plan, so maybe Inkscape, or learn some Fusion 360 to see if it can do it, and then maybe openSCAD if that fails.

Here are the software tools I used:

Here’s the Javascript program, if you want to give it a try yourself: http://hipnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/3D-Half-Tone.zip

Amazon Associate Link: Made with Hatchbox PLA

Posted on 4 Comments

My New 3D Printer

Just got a Prusa I3 MK3 printer. I ordered the MK2 in June 2017, switched my order to the MK3 in October, which added a few months on to my delivery time. Finally arrived, February 2018. I’m super happy with it so far. Leagues beyond my Tronxy, but I’m keeping it and will still use it.

Here’s a time-lapse video of me assembling it: