Easy lithopanes with Simplify3D

[jsc]

More "lithophane" experiments: I took my previous model and tried to figure out how to morph it onto a cylinder. At first, it seemed like meshmixer could do it, but the spare documentation, confusing UI, and continuous crashes finally turned me away. There's some guy selling some Windows software to do this sort of thing, but I didn't want to spend the $40. So I figured out how to do it in OpenSCAD:

I took the flat panel and embossed it onto a cylinder to get a negative, by recursively differencing it and rotating/translating them two millimeters at a time, like a rack and pinion. Then I differenced the result with a shell to get the original surface, but as the inside surface of a cylindrical pipe. Worked pretty well, but takes 3.5 hours to render.

[jimc]

wow thats a cool idea too jin. this is easily done in rhino too. never really thought of it. you could just put one of those led tea lights in the cup to make it glow...if its bright enough. ill have to mess with it.

[Tim]

Agreed, this is utterly cool.

But it's one of those things that OpenSCAD is slow at because it's trying to do it all the hard way, whereas the geometric manipulations here aren't at all complex. Maybe this is a job for TobyCAD?

[jimc]

so for your guys settings in s3d, image depth scale was at 2mm, platform height was set to 1.0mm and what about the blur setting. did you have that on and set to what?

[jsc]

That was left at the default. 1.0, I think.

Platform height was 0.3, but I effectively beefed it up during the wrapping process to 0.4, to make sure it was at least one extrusion width thick all the way around. The platform height will turn into the outermost shell.

[jimc]

cool jin, thanks!

[Toby]

Agreed, this is utterly cool.

But it's one of those things that OpenSCAD is slow at because it's trying to do it all the hard way, whereas the geometric manipulations here aren't at all complex. Maybe this is a job for TobyCAD?

Yeah, if you just want to wrap it around a cylinder that would be easy, provided you had the model saved in a simple format like ASCII stl.

With a little more work you could wrap it around any polygonal extrusion, though not sure why you would want to do that.

Edit: Well come to think of it that could be interesting, like a wavy pattern to stand on a desk, or maybe a light shade.

[jsc]

I've cleaned up the code and made it customizable by dropping the resolution:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:322720

[Tim]

I have almost caught up with you, Jin! Today I wrote my own lithophane generator in C code, and by this evening coded it to wrap the image around a quarter cylinder. It will process a reasonable-sized photograph in about two seconds. I have not yet tried printing anything from the results, but I think my image conversion algorithm gives better results than the one used by S3D. And, of course, theirs doesn't wrap around a cylinder! Next stop---mapping onto a sphere (the "lithosphere"---get it?).

[jimc]

ive printed a couple of these now. works really well. it a shame the smooth side is the one that you see. if you flip to the actual textured side it looks so much more crisp and clear. oh well. cool in any case. i am printing out a few of these then im going to make a few wooden boxes with backlights so you can set them on a table. ill post a picture of the completed project.