Image or design Infill

[Matt_Sharkey]

I want to make a single or double layer print which has an image or a pattern in the infil, or basically the extruder's path. Is there any programs that will generate gcode that will print an image or text in the infill instead of rectilinear or honeycomb infill?

this idea came about when a friend offered to pay me, a trivial, $1.00 for a 3D print of anything. so i thought it would be funny to print him a $1 bill that was 2 layers thick, for both front and back. this idea could be further used for branding of a product, if you were to repeat a logo throughout the infill of the item printed, or even just an artistic standpoint if you wanted your infill to be, say, houndstooth.

[jsc]

There is not a way to have arbitrary infill. But it's not quite clear that's what you want, anyway.

Some options:

Slic3r has different infill patterns, including top and bottom layer infills. But you are limited to a set of patterns, including honeycomb, Hilbert curve, and arcs.

If you want a flat design, you can try one of the lithophane generators from Thingiverse. Simplify3D has a similar built-in option which is much faster to convert an image to a height map under the Add Ins menu.

[Tim]

Yeah, I think the best option will end up being a lot of work. Even the lithophane generation code isn't necessarily good at coming up with a path in this case, in which I think you want a path. . . it can be done, with effort. You'd want to define a pattern as a set of outlines, say, in inkscape, save this to a DXF file, import into OpenSCAD, extrude, and then use that to fill an otherwise hollow design (those are the tools I tend to use, but I'm sure there are others out there that can take a complex outline and extrude a volume from it).

However, if you're only printing a few layers, then the lithophane is the way to go.

[Tim]

Try this out for size. . .

Print at a fine resolution for best results. Granted, that's much more complicated than your "2 layer" idea. I didn't spend time tweaking it.

I generated it in just a few minutes using an image I pulled from Google and my program "lithophane" (an open source C program) that is posted on Thingiverse under "The World Cup Lithomap".

[Matt_Sharkey]

so i guess a point here is that i dont want to use the 3d printer to make a 3d object, rather i would like to use the 3d printer as a 2d printer, that can print a representation of an image using the typical toolpath. I think I may have an idea on how to work around this...

[benavery]

I'm sure there are some complex solutions that involve using plotter or 2d CAM software to generate gcode, then editing it to augment it with the extrusions commands etc to make your printer 'draw' in plastic on a single layer. However generating a 0.2mm thick 3d model, which will slice into just a single layer, gives you an identical effect.

[Tim]

I think you're missing the point that the lithophane really does work. For the heck of it, I have regenerated my lithophane with a "natural" size that is two layers thick at 0.2mm per layer (and without the margin, which was unnecessary). Sliced as-is, the result is 2 layers thick and is recognizably a dollar bill. You can mess with the Z scaling or the layer heights to get however many layers you want.

[Matt_Sharkey]

okay Tim, I'll give it a shot once i get my extruder mount figured out. printing has been put on hold