Have other users already had experience exporting 3D (pixel) waves to formats for 3D printing?
I’d be interested to know if there are already established workflows for exporting files in a suitable format.
I recently got a 3D printer myself, and I'm curious to know what sort of thing you'd be interested in printing that you've designed(?) in Igor, if you can share. I think AG might have added something related to 3D printing to Gizmo, so I'll make sure he sees your message.
A while back I wrote some code that lets you work with *.stl files. I posted it here: https://www.wavemetrics.com/forum/general/read-or-load-stl-files. Please let me know if you have something else in mind.
AG
I am currently processing data calculated for three-dimensional space using Igor and displaying it as a gizmo, among other things. Since I create voxelgrams based on the type of data, I have tested the .ply file format yesterday. (With help from Gemini, I've managed to have a usable export for one of my data sets.)
Since I don't know much about 3D printing yet, I'm interested in any ideas you might have. Whether anyone actually does this and what formats are used.
I'll take a look at the linked experiment—thanks a lot, aclight and AG!
I don't have a 3D scanner and have never worked with .ply files. I am mostly printing fidget toys for my kids and various accessories for the 3D printer, but the things I've designed myself were designed in Fusion and exported as STEP files into my slicer for printing.
Data from 3D scans may need a lot of cleanup to be printable, since you'll need to make sure that parts are connected to each other and not just floating, and depending on the shape of the object it might be difficult to print without a lot of supporting material. If you want to share your data set we might be able to give more concrete advice. Feel free to email support directly if any of this is confidential.
The connectivity of the data makes me think that voxelgrams are not ideal in this case unless you really have a contiguous blob. If you have volumetric data (3D scalar distribution) you might consider creating a display of some slice of the data. Note that the slice does not have to be planar. In fact, if you inspect the image that is associated with my account it is a spherical slice of a brain. Depending on your data and the and if your 3D printer can print in more than one color, there are a few other options to consider.
One option that comes to mind is to convert the voxelgram to a scatter plot and then use the "drop lines" to provide the means of keeping the scatter objects in 3D. I have not experimented with that so I don't know what sort of drop lines may be required to support a typical voxelgram cube.
Feel free to send us an example dataset and tell us how you would like to display it.
AG
As far as I understand, PLY files are basically like STEP files, but with more informations (like a color).
The connections between the voxels are an important detail. That shouldn't be a problem for some waves, but for others, support structures will be missing.
I'll take a closer look at the data. Thank you very much for the input!
There is a very simple Igor procedure that allows you to export one or multiple scaled 3D waves as a PLY file attached. It supports a total of 7 colors. A cube is generated for each data point and saved in the PLY file. There are no checks to verify the suitability of the chosen waves.
To call the function: f_export_ply()
I’ve spoken with colleagues who have experience with 3D printing. In principle, the exported PLY files appear to be readable by the 3d printing software, but post-processing using this software may be necessary (e.g., infill and support structures).
If I gain more experience, I'll share it here at a later time.
Thanks for posting the procedure.
Minor issue: on Windows "â‰\ Min." does not map to ">=Min".
FWIW, the code worked for a 3D sample wave:
make/n=(20,30,40) ddd=sin(x/5)*cos(y/10)*exp(-(z-20)^2/50).I created a .ply file that I was able to view in 3D Viewer. I also opened the file in UltiMaker Cura 5.4.0 and successfully sliced it for 3D printing.
Now if only there were a way to print the object represented by the data together with the coordinate axes... 😊
If your data crosses the origin you just need https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/pva