Tag: prusa i3 mk3

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:

• P5.JS Javascript library for creative coding: https://p5js.org
• SVG library for P5.js: https://github.com/zenozeng/p5.js-svg
• Blender 3D: https://www.blender.org
• GIMP: https://www.gimp.org
• Prusa ColorPrint: https://www.prusaprinters.org/color-p… (watch out for the gotcha)

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