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28 Mar 2024 05:06:31 EDT (-0400)
  3D printing (Message 1 to 8 of 8)  
From: gharryh
Subject: 3D printing
Date: 16 Mar 2010 12:40:01
Message: <web.4b9fb4369a020b12da0e3b8d0@news.povray.org>
Is it possible to print PovRay in 3D.
Should i use a special converter?

Harry H. Arends


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From: Sabrina Kilian
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 16 Mar 2010 18:02:58
Message: <4ba00012$1@news.povray.org>
gharryh wrote:
> Is it possible to print PovRay in 3D.
> Should i use a special converter?
> 
> Harry H. Arends
> 
> 

Directly, no. A raytracer alone will not let you print something.

What you can do is take the object you want to print, and create a
series of thin orthographic pictures with the camera looking straight on
from a fixed position. To get the slices that (most) 3D printers use,
you would find the intersection between the object you want to print and
a very thin cube perpendicular to the camera. Depending on the 3D
printer, you will probably avoid using any colored textures, and want to
use just a black and white image.

The difficult part is making sure that there is enough solid space
inside the object to support it as it is printed. This depends on the
printer you are using, and the technology it uses.

Now, if you have a 3D printer that understands some 3D file format and
not just a series of images, that's a whole different beast. Some
information about the printer would be useful in helping you with this.


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From: Roman Reiner
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 16 Mar 2010 18:15:01
Message: <web.4ba002612d205d0f1c2a3d200@news.povray.org>
Sabrina Kilian <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote:
> gharryh wrote:
> > Is it possible to print PovRay in 3D.
> > Should i use a special converter?
> >
> > Harry H. Arends
> >
> >
>
> Directly, no. A raytracer alone will not let you print something.
>
> What you can do is take the object you want to print, and create a
> series of thin orthographic pictures with the camera looking straight on
> from a fixed position. To get the slices that (most) 3D printers use,
> you would find the intersection between the object you want to print and
> a very thin cube perpendicular to the camera. Depending on the 3D
> printer, you will probably avoid using any colored textures, and want to
> use just a black and white image.
>
> The difficult part is making sure that there is enough solid space
> inside the object to support it as it is printed. This depends on the
> printer you are using, and the technology it uses.
>
> Now, if you have a 3D printer that understands some 3D file format and
> not just a series of images, that's a whole different beast. Some
> information about the printer would be useful in helping you with this.

There is an inside function which afaik works for all solid objects (non solid
objects could not be printed anyway). So you could just loop over discrete
points in your scene and check whether they are inside some geometry or not.

After all it comes down to which format you need your scene to be in in order to
be printed.


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From: Chris Cason
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 16 Mar 2010 22:17:16
Message: <4ba03bac@news.povray.org>
On 17/03/2010 09:02, Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> gharryh wrote:
>> Is it possible to print PovRay in 3D.
>> Should i use a special converter?
>> 
>> Harry H. Arends
>> 
>> 
> 
> Directly, no. A raytracer alone will not let you print something.
> 
> What you can do is take the object you want to print, and create a
> series of thin orthographic pictures with the camera looking straight on
> from a fixed position. To get the slices that (most) 3D printers use,
> you would find the intersection between the object you want to print and
> a very thin cube perpendicular to the camera. Depending on the 3D
> printer, you will probably avoid using any colored textures, and want to
> use just a black and white image.
> 
> The difficult part is making sure that there is enough solid space
> inside the object to support it as it is printed. This depends on the
> printer you are using, and the technology it uses.
> 
> Now, if you have a 3D printer that understands some 3D file format and
> not just a series of images, that's a whole different beast. Some
> information about the printer would be useful in helping you with this.

An example of somewhere this has been done is the candyfab project:

  http://www.candyfab.org/

see also 'Slicing STL files in POV-Ray'

  http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/slicingstl

-- Chris


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From: Kenneth
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 17 Mar 2010 01:10:09
Message: <web.4ba0630f2d205d0f65f302820@news.povray.org>
Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

>
> An example of somewhere this has been done is the candyfab project:
>
>   http://www.candyfab.org/
>
> see also 'Slicing STL files in POV-Ray'
>
>   http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/slicingstl
>

Good to see that they've posted the how-to info re: POV-Ray. (That was missing
when I looked at the site last year.) From a quick view of those sites, it seems
that you need to start with an STL file first, then convert it to POV-Ray using
their 'stl2pov' utility. I.e., apparently you can't start with a POV-Ray scene
that you've created. Am I wrong about that?

BTW, their stl2pov utility is pre-compiled as a binary, but only for Windows;
Mac users need to compile their own.

Ken


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From: Sabrina Kilian
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 17 Mar 2010 11:08:03
Message: <4ba0f053$1@news.povray.org>
Kenneth wrote:
> Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> 
>> An example of somewhere this has been done is the candyfab project:
>>
>>   http://www.candyfab.org/
>>
>> see also 'Slicing STL files in POV-Ray'
>>
>>   http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/slicingstl
>>
> 
> Good to see that they've posted the how-to info re: POV-Ray. (That was missing
> when I looked at the site last year.) From a quick view of those sites, it seems
> that you need to start with an STL file first, then convert it to POV-Ray using
> their 'stl2pov' utility. I.e., apparently you can't start with a POV-Ray scene
> that you've created. Am I wrong about that?
> 
> BTW, their stl2pov utility is pre-compiled as a binary, but only for Windows;
> Mac users need to compile their own.
> 
> Ken

The stl2pov just turns the stl file into an object{}. Read through the
other code on the slicing page, and it describes how to create an
animation that will give you a series of slices.

Just replace the parts stating
object {  m_Rhinoceros_Binary_STL___Jun_15_2005__   rotate 90*x }
with your own object, and you can create what you like.

A word of warning, the items you can create really depends on the
printer you have available. Something like Metatron is easier on a
printer where the printing media helps suspend the object until printing
is finished, like laser fusing or sintering. Machines that build the
object freestanding, material deposition, have difficulty with thin
objects and you sometimes have to add support pieces just to finish
printing.


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From: Alain
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 17 Mar 2010 19:26:02
Message: <4ba1650a$1@news.povray.org>

> Chris Cason<del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg>  wrote:
>
>>
>> An example of somewhere this has been done is the candyfab project:
>>
>>    http://www.candyfab.org/
>>
>> see also 'Slicing STL files in POV-Ray'
>>
>>    http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/slicingstl
>>
>
> Good to see that they've posted the how-to info re: POV-Ray. (That was missing
> when I looked at the site last year.) From a quick view of those sites, it seems
> that you need to start with an STL file first, then convert it to POV-Ray using
> their 'stl2pov' utility. I.e., apparently you can't start with a POV-Ray scene
> that you've created. Am I wrong about that?
>
> BTW, their stl2pov utility is pre-compiled as a binary, but only for Windows;
> Mac users need to compile their own.
>
> Ken
>
>
>
>

The slt2pov convert a model into a POV object.

If you skip the part about slt2pov, you can start directly with any POV 
object(s).


Alain


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From: Fergus Murray
Subject: Re: 3D printing
Date: 13 Jul 2012 07:25:00
Message: <web.500005012d205d0ff0214dd00@news.povray.org>
I'd be much more interested in outputting .stl files from POV-Ray, since I have
a lot of things that I've made in POV-Ray which I'd love to see 3D-printed...

Any chance?

Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

> > Chris Cason<del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg>  wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> An example of somewhere this has been done is the candyfab project:
> >>
> >>    http://www.candyfab.org/
> >>
> >> see also 'Slicing STL files in POV-Ray'
> >>
> >>    http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/slicingstl
> >>
> >
> > Good to see that they've posted the how-to info re: POV-Ray. (That was missing
> > when I looked at the site last year.) From a quick view of those sites, it seems
> > that you need to start with an STL file first, then convert it to POV-Ray using
> > their 'stl2pov' utility. I.e., apparently you can't start with a POV-Ray scene
> > that you've created. Am I wrong about that?
> >
> > BTW, their stl2pov utility is pre-compiled as a binary, but only for Windows;
> > Mac users need to compile their own.
> >
> > Ken
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> The slt2pov convert a model into a POV object.
>
> If you skip the part about slt2pov, you can start directly with any POV
> object(s).
>
>
> Alain


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