.stl file for 3D-printing

[Poul Riis]

Would it be easiy to develop a tool that converts VPython objects to an .stl file for 3D-printing?

Poul Riis

[Bruce Sherwood]

In the "Contributed" section of vpython.org, see this:

Convert STL 3D graphics files (Derek Lura and Bruce Sherwood)

[Josh Gates]

Does that convert from STL to VP or from VP to STL? I thought it was the former. I'm looking for the latter, if it exists.

jg

[Bruce Sherwood]

That program read an stl file and created a VPython 6 faces object.

On August 9 I posted this related note:

POVEXPORT

A number of subtle bugs related to lights and to the creation of canvases have been fixed, which has made it possible to produce a first version of the povexport module that works with VPython 7.

The povexport module exports a VPython scene to the free ray-tracing program POV-ray, which produces much higher-quality images than is possible in real-time VPython animations. It was initially created by Ruth Chabay many years ago, and several others also contributed over the years: Markus Gritsch, Bruce Sherwood, Scott David Daniels, Guy Kloss, and John Denker.  For details of their contributions, see the version of povexport for Classic VPython available in the Contributed section of vpython.org.

The new povexport is available here and includes comments on how to use the module:

https://github.com/BruceSherwood/vpython-jupyter/blob/master/Demos_no_notebook/povexport.py

And here is a sample program that uses the povexport module:

https://github.com/BruceSherwood/vpython-jupyter/blob/master/Demos_no_notebook/povexport_example.py

Attached is the png image produced by POV-ray. Note the shadow of the arrow and the general very high quality of the image.

Objects not currently exported are compound, 3D text, extrusion, points, triangle, and quad.