Printing glitched 3d models

[Antonio Roberts]

Hello fizzPOPers!

I'm interested in doing some printing of glitched 3D models. Just in
case you weren't aware, glitching 3D models usually involves exporting
a .obj (from Blender), opening it in a text editor and replacing
numbers with other numbers.

Anyway, I want to print one of these models, but I was wondering, will
there be any issues with vertices overlapping and cutting through each
other? I've attached an example, or copy the text from here into a
file called monkey.obj and import into Blender
http://pastebin.com/mCkifChi

Thanks

Antonio

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[Thomas Hodson]

There will almost certainly be problems that prevent you from printing the file as is but I'm sure these can be removed in meshlab, blender or something else without harming the glitchy aesthetic.

As an aside, I was playing with a tool in meshlab that reduces the number of polygons in a model, got some interesting looking stuff, overlaying high and low poly models and watching the transitions, it reminded me of some of your gifs in which you gradually reduce the number of line segments in a piece of vector art. Love those. :)

Tom

[Ben O'Steen]

Overlapping or holes in the surface are a problem for normal (extrusion) printers. To turn a 3d model into something printable, it slices the model into layers and then, for each layer, tries to work out the solid perimeters and what areas are solid and what aren't.

If you want to see if something is printable, get http://slic3r.org/ and convert your glitched object into a .stl file (highlight the object in blender and then 'export'). Open Slic3r and 'Add' the stl file you just created. Click on the 'export g-code' button and save the .gcode file somewhere (you can leave the default settings as they are, but you might want to adjust scale).

The g-code file contains instructions that direct the printer to actually print your object. It will likely complain about 'non-manifold' problems as the surface of your glitched object will likely have holes in but you might get something printable.

To view your g-code, go to http://gcode.joewalnes.com/ using a WebGL browser (chromium/chrome should do) and load the gcode in there. 

You might think that the gcode a nice target for glitching - it is ASCII and contains commands like 'move to x,y', 'extrude 3mm of plastic', move to x,y,z at speed k'. The commands are in code, but once you know it, it is straightforward (http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel_User_Manual:_RepRapGCodes) 

However, this is controlling the actual physic movements of the printer, so it can easily cause damage to the printer! I wouldn't recommend it as the only thing you'd be able to tweak really is the X and Y moves and then, not by much.

Ben

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[Ben O'Steen]

I struggled to get anything printable from that file but I managed to get this much printed:

http://imgur.com/a/sftcn

Ben

On Tuesday, 5 February 2013, Antonio Roberts wrote:

[Antonio Roberts]

> low poly models and watching the transitions, it reminded me of some of your
> gifs in which you gradually reduce the number of line segments in a piece of

> vector art. Love those. :)I'm glad you liked the gifs! You can download the Processing code to make your own here: http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/84160

Antonio

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[Antonio Roberts]

> http://imgur.com/a/sftcn
Wow, that looks awesome! Thanks for attempting to print it.

I wonder, if I were to "expand the appearance" (a term I borrowed from
Adobe Illustrator) of the model would it solve some of these problems?
By that I mean making the model consist of only its outside faces.
Maybe I'm not clear on this...

Is someone who can operate the machine gonna be at fizzPOP tonight? I
should be there by 8:30

Antonio