Welcome to Fractal Forums

I've created a virtual shop on Shapeways, the 3D printing site:

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/3Dfractals

I have created the following models :

- Mandelbulb
- Sierpinski Cuboctahedron
- Menger Rhombododecahedron
- "Beamed" Octahedron
- "Cubofractal" Octahedron
- and "Inside an Amazing Box" that passed the initial test at upload time but did not print successfully.

My (iterative) workflow is the following:

- Mandelbulb3D => Voxel export
- FIJI to produce an OBJ file from the Voxel slices
- Meshlab to do some postprocessing and export to STL
- Netfabb to fix issues before printing
- Upload the STL to Shapeways

That's just a start, as I need to learn so many new tools and techniques, and assimilate the constraints of 3D printing like number of polygons, thickness, how to minimize the quantity of matter, etc.. and how to better use Mandelbulb3D accordingly: DE stop values, number of iterations, output size, and how all these params interact together and impact the 3D mesh.

The variety of materials seems very interesting: different types of plastic of various colors, alumide, glass, steel, even silver or bronze!

So far I have ordered the Mandelbulb in white plastic, I will post photos when I receive it. I will order more soon, but I have other ideas in mind before, and I'd like to make one large order to reduce shipping costs.

Feel free if you have any question or comments and feedback about 3D printing in general...

wow what a great offer ;) i think i am going to buy the mandelbulb right now

regards!!!

quite low detail on the bulb :(

I'll try to do a more detailed version. The first one I did was much more detailed but it was rejected at upload. As I said, I'm still learning!

yea, lol i would love to have something like this in the non existant fractalforums shop ;)
i know it is hard to get a connected object, the plate with the mandelbox looks nice because it looks like something is hanging in the air, but it is connected

you need to make sure that there is no lonely pixel that is not connected to the main bulb, but giving it a little more detail should be doable!

Connectedness is not the main problem because you can print non-connected objects. The problem is to iteratively find what is the maximum precision they can accept while staying in the 1 million triangle count limit. There are some guidelines but these are applicable to quite simple objects, not fractals...

lol, yeah, horrible fractals with horrible big surfaces ;)
i see they base it on triangle count !? strange they do not work directly with voxel maps ?!?
very strange because at the end of the day they have to send voxels to the printer....

more simple things should be in there as well, like a menger sponge, i am interested in such like mengersponge, mandelbulb because they can be great be used to explain stuff

why is the "inside the mandelbox not buyable"?
this one is so detailed that it attracts me most from the selection ;)

Yes, strange and not very flexible with the limited knowledge I have in mesh manipulation. I should ask them if they prefer directly the slices instead of a triangle mesh. After all, that's how the printer works, layer by layer.

There are already some Menger sponges on Shapeways.

Because when I ordered it, it failed to print. See the message and picture they sent me:

----
These design(s) could not be 3D printed in the material selected.
Reason: Thin walls
Additional information: very strange file, might cause problems during build
----

I like the operator's comment : "very strange file" :D:D

I don't think the printers allow raw voxel data yet:
http://www.engineering.com/3DPrinting/3DPrintingArticles/ArticleID/4523/2012-The-Beginning-of-the-End-for-Polygons.aspx

Notice the same author has a long discussion of voxel vs polygons for the Mandelbulb: http://40westdesigns.com/blog/?p=371

Thanks a lot for the links, very interesting, and sadly, we can't eliminate polygons from the workflow.

I was going to ask you: does your software offer mesh export and can you control the number of polygons?

The problem I have with Fiji is how to control the sizes of triangles and basically that it uses brute force. For example I guess that ideally a large flat surface should be made of one or a few large triangles, not plenty of small triangles. Given the 1 million triangles limit in Shapeways, it's best to use them where detail is needed, not to pave flat areas. Is that something achievable with Structure Synth or Fragmentarium?

Fragmentarium has no support for meshes, but Structure Synth may output OBJ files. In general it creates an enormous amount of polygons, so it would be necessary to remesh and/or simplify in Meshlab (notice Meshlab has a built-in Structure Synth interpreter!).

I have produced a hollow version of the mandelbulb

http://www.shapeways.com/search?q=bulb9a

I have not printed it yet. The model is downloadable so you can look at it with meshlab or similar viewer. Also you can make it smaller if you want to spend less.

The Sierpinski Cuboctahedron is really cool. Would you be willing to make the model available?

Great stuff for the 21st century - impressing! :worm:

Dunno if you own a major 3d modeller. Some have pretty good polygon reduction modules. Depending on the model, you can get rid of up to 90% of triangles without a visible loss. Even a complex shape like the mandelbulb might benefit from such a tool (while I didn't try yet).

These are just Sierpinski tetrahedrons stitched together. Did you use a sphere to make your Mandelbulb hollow?

I used a sphere fold on C to mirror the exterior on the inside.

if(|C| > C_cutoff) {
   C_new = C*(C_cutoff/|C|)^2;
}

Use C_new in place of C in the bulb calculation.

Thanks, I am trying that. I want to make a half bulb so we can see the inside too.

@taurus, for polygon count reduction I used Meshlab and followed this procedure but I'm not convinced by the result. http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/polygon_reduction_with_meshlab

I think I can improve a lot the first mesh if I understand better how to use Fiji.

so, people, this is why we use raymarcher instead of marching cubes for visualising

what the guy basically is talking about is that voxel representation is far more efficient than using vector/triangle representation

to understand it, just compare a raymarched mandelbulb with a marching cubes mandelbulb at the same iteration level

the triangles ad an amount of uncertainity to the result, thus, false results lead to wrong connected triangles, this
can not happen when working with raw voxel data, although vector data use more memory ;)
this is what he is talking about in the memory footprint section

awesome, dudes, we just have right now another example of that the art or indefinitely beautiful objects serve a purpose
and he is using just the mandelbulb for analysing such data sets for 3d printing, lols, if he would have hand on a real
3d mandelbrot it would just show more complexity in the differencies between voxel and vector representation due to the
far more detailed surface a true mandelbrot would exhibit

awesome, this is great because i always need examples why i do the calendar, and what art has to do with science,
and the mandelbulb served a purpose in this case, to demonstrate the lack of triangle representation for 3d printers ;)

nice!

@taurus its true that polygon reduction would provide an optimised mesh for 3d printing ....
we have a problem here, this would work on a low iteration bulb like bib used in his shop, the more detailed
is added (due to iterations) the more complex the surface gets, and a really good algorithm would not have anything
to optimize, comparable to a jpeg image compressed via zip .... ;)

and this is basically the answer to why voxel representation for 3d printers is far more efficient for such detailed objects
because the voxel representation is directly mapable to the dpi or dpsi ( dots per square inch ) ah no we are in 3d dpci (dots per cube inch )
and the vector representation just explodes in memory footprint because for one dot you need 5 points to define a pyramid... ( how is the triangle based pyramid called?)

the text about voxels vs polygons is just perfect! and should be made sticky somewhere

fractals provide an abstract superficial representation of what should be possible, and funny enough the 3d printers
can provide much higher resolution using voxel data ( because this is what they actually print ) than with vector representation
(because a single dot in 3d would need at least 4 points connected to a pyramid )

and this can be very good demonstrated using fractals because they provide an (sic) perfect (no real 3d mandelbrot yet ) way of what is
basically doable with such a printer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!eleven!!!1111!thousandonehundretandeleven!!!!1!!!!

i just love the article about voxels vs polygons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Triangles rule!!!

Cool stuff bib! (even if they are a bit small and low resolution)
The inside mandelbox is really beautiful!

Did you order any of them for yourself?

(http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2011/289/0/9/fractal_wasp_mug_and_friends_by_mandelwerk-d4czf0p.jpg)

 :dink: :dink: :dink: :dink:

I know in principle, but I thought of the rather plain, whipped cream parts of a bulb. I would think, a good algorithm should spot those and leave the detailed parts untouched.
But obviously bib tried and wasn't convinced - so as long as I don't try, I simply believe him.

@CK a triangle based pyramid is called a tetrahedron! :o :D

@Johan, I have ordered the low precision bulb. How many triangles were used in your model? At first sight, I would say between 5 and 10 millions, and Shapeways limit is 1 million :-(

And regarding the size, small is beautiful! And also much cheaper, because the price is proportional to the quantity of matter, so when you divide the dimensions by a factor 2, you reduce the quantity of matter by a factor 8 (in the simple case of a plain cube)

I could post images, but I confirm that the whipped cream areas are still full of small triangles even after polygon count reduction using the Quadratic Edge Collapse Detection in Meshlab. Ideally I would like to be able to define what specific areas of the mesh need to be simplified. I still need to test the myriad of options that exist in Meshlab and Fiji, when time permits...

Actually I have no idea, it was done using voxel layers from Daniel White converted by the guy who made the prints.
But the details of the mini mini bulbs are really small <1mm...

What material has been used? I guess the fine details are very fragile?

Here is the most detailed bulb I managed to upload to Shapeways.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/804597/mbulb-8-coque-2x2-aa-pnm-inverted-repaired.html

Now it doesn't mean that it will print successfully, but at least it's passed the first tests...

Click on the blue cube to see it spinning around :)

I removed some matter by substracting a smaller bulb. That is not very academic but my attemps at making thin walls all failed.

It is some kind of plastic composit, not VERY fragile, but I wouldn't like to drop it on the floor...

I am very impressed by your voxel export bib especially the inside box!  :beer: :beer: :beer:

Hard to see in the small preview, but it looks like you are wasting lots of polys for the subtraction bulb. At least this one could be radically polygon reduced, without a loss of quality.


I'd scale the initial bulb along the midpoint and bool it out. hexagon or blender should do for this quest.

Thanks a lot bib for kicking off that inspiring discussion. Lots of useful suggestions in here. I just downloaded fiji to start my own researches...

That's right I'm wasting a lot of triangles because of this. On the other hand, there are 2 big benefits:
1 - you can see the inside (assuming you cut the bulb in half)
2 - the amount of matter is significantly reduced, thus the price (or I can make it much bigger for the same price as a small "full" version)


This is what I did, except that I did it directly in M3D in InvMax DE comb mode. Try it for yourself, you see that it is not very satisfactory. On the other hand, if I try to use the Outside+Inside mode (or an equivalent method using InvMax DE comb) then the walls are too thin (and even full of holes after it's been processed by Fiji). So I try to increase DE stop to make them thicker, at the expense of details...:(:(

My pleasure. I am convinced that 3D printing is a technology that will explode in the coming years. I bet that by 2025-2030, it will be possible and affordable to have a 3D printer at home, like you have a regular printer. There are already kits to build your own below $3000. Imagine that instead of going to the shop and even ordering online, you will order anything directly on your 3D printer and print it directly at home.

Please let us know your findings!

FYI, I am using this procedure:
http://www.fractalforums.com/tutorials/voxel-image-stack-and-then-what/msg39304/#msg39304
Except that step 4 is not necessary as far as my tests indicate. (It is useful only to avoid typing a filename in the next step) and step 6 is not necessary either, well you still have to wait a few seconds after the last progress bar has stopped and check when the OBJ file size stops to grow, before importing it into Meshlab.

For sure!

Here is the best compromise I came up with so far: http://www.shapeways.com/model/805955/mandelbulb-8.html

Ok, did some tests my self, but to start with the bad news: It seems, that the triangulation of the voxelstack itself avoids an efficient polygon reduction, at least within my first fiji models. I see no way so far, to solve that problem in fiji. Resampling or any other procedure I tried, didn't show a significant improvement. I prepared some snapshots to illustrate the problem.
first the rendering of my chosen cutout left the initial fiji output @4 million polygons - right an optimized one @1 million. as there are big cutting planes, which are easy to optimize, the amount of reduction is not significant for other models
(http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211463059.jpg) (http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211671199.jpg)

next a closeup of a "boxish" area that shows, the layered structure. here is the probem - a plain or curved surface is no longer plain or curved. I think every optimization algorithm will fail here. left the raw fiji output - right the optimized version
(http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211279887.jpg) (http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211778950.jpg)

last but not least an example, that it is possible to create optimizable meshes out of 3d Fractals. It shows the mesh of a quaternion created with a 10 year old (!) version of fractal zplot. As long as 3d printers reqire 3d meshes, this is the smartest implementation. reduction rates of 95% and above are possible here. left initial mesh - right optimized mesh
(http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211571582.jpg) (http://bilder.toplist100.org/show-image_350-12120211876007.jpg)

Thanks taurus. I found out that to get an optimized mesh in Meshlab (like in your last picture), it is important to UNcheck the Planar simplification checkbox in the Filter/Quadric Edge Collaspe Dimension window. But I still haven't found the ideal combination of parameters there and especially what technique to use based on the particular shapes I'm dealing with.

Très cools ces fractales mais un peu cher !
Un julia 4D Quaternionesque serait un modèle intéressant (http://www.subblue.com/blog/2009/9/20/quaternion_julia) ;D .

Hehe, I was thinking about reincarnating my old Quats for printing. I've got a collection of ready to print meshes on my 'puter - including a complete chess set. I think they are still interresting...

(http://nocache-nocookies.digitalgott.com/gallery/11/thumb_4392_24_06_12_11_48_47.jpeg) (http://nocache-nocookies.digitalgott.com/gallery/6/thumb_4392_23_03_11_12_45_31.jpeg)

I just received the 3D printed Mandelbulb from Shapeways and I'm quite positively surprised. The material is a white plastic which is rigid and slightly rough but shines a little in the light. Even if the level of detail on the model seemed quite low, as the object itself is quite small, there is no impression of lack of detail.

Here is a photo and the model. Sorry for the low quality, I will take a photo with a better camera.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/794123/mandelbulb.html

I will probably also order the more detailed version I made afterwards http://www.shapeways.com/model/805955/mandelbulb-8.html
And also all the others :)

Hi!
Thanks for the important information,
I am also very keen on the creation of 3D models from fractals. Here are a couple of sites where you can post your model.
www.sculpteo.com
www.3dprintingmodel.com

With mandelbulb yet I have problems too, that's the best thing I did.
http://www.betak1992.de/tmp/2bulb.jpg (http://www.betak1992.de/tmp/2bulb.jpg)

But other fractals go well.
http://www.sculpteo.com/embed/gallery/?click=order&designer=slon_ru (http://www.sculpteo.com/embed/gallery/?click=order&designer=slon_ru)

It would be good to add antialiansing function in voxelsteck render menu ... and do www.fractalshops.com!

br.

Thanks slon_ru for the links. Have you tried to print your models? Any feedback? So far I am happy with Shapeways, but I might look at these too if they have better prices or different constraints, as the 1 million triangle limit is a real issue.

Some more sites to explore in this 3D printing sites comparison matrix: http://3dprinterhub.com/3d-printer-services

Guys,

I am in contact with a rock star developer at Shapeways. He tells me he might be looking for top geeks to develop an interface to load an image stack directly in the core Shapeways software, which means to Mandelbulb3D users that the Fiji step would become irrelevant.

Any mad coder is interested to volunteer for this work on bleeding edge software and technology?

Cheers

bib

Hello,
I am Vladimir Bulatov, that Shapeways developer. I am not rock star :-)

I would like to clarify the problem. Shapeways develops open source software http://abfab3d.com/
intended to facilitate process of 3D printing. It is extensive library of 3D voxel grid representation and manipulation
written in java. In particularly it provides the process to convert voxel grid into usable triangle mesh with appropriate
reduction of face count. the package is in early stages of development, but I think it is already useful
enough for experience programmer.

I am fractal lover myself and used that library to create printable fractal shapes.
Photos of my first real piece are attached.
The 3D model can be viewed and downloaded from
http://www.shapeways.com/model/730555/limit-set-i.html

I generate voxel grid and convert it into triangle mesh directly in my program using abfab3d API.

As I myself feel that abfab3d is capable to produce high quality printable 3D mesh for fractals
I though it may be useful for other fractal builders.
However it is just a library and it needs some user interface to be usable by non programmers.
If there is a person who wish to use the library to write program which
can accept some more useful input (like stack of images) , I would be happy to provide
pointers in the code where to start from.

This is open source software with generous LGPL license.
So the program will be yours.
At the same time Shapeways will continue the abfab3d development and improvements.


Vladimir Bulatov
3D graphics researcher
http://shapeways.com
personal site
http://bulatov.org

hi there, great to hear from such an experienced dude, shapeways is awesome, you can explain why the introduce the 1 million mesh limit, i mean is it just arbitrary set up or really given through technical limitations ?

1M limit is due to current limited hardware/software capabilities of different printers Shapeway has.
1M really pushes hardware to the limit. We are working on improving that.

It is perfectly possible make printable fractal models with reasonable polygon count.
Abfab3d helps to do it.
Here is video of that fractal piece http://youtu.be/HsVBm2vUgX8
It is about 20 cm in diameter and has 600,000 triangles

Current advise - the smaller triangle count you can get without compromising model's visual quality
the more smooth and faster the printing process will go and this will make everybody happier.

Keep in mind, that bad/unprintable models waste computing resource and make printers crash
and make printer's operators sad. :-(



Vladimir Bulatov
3D graphics researcher
http://shapeways.com
personal site
http://bulatov.org

Hmmm, that makes this fractal a nice one to try on a 3d printer :)
http://www.fractalforums.com/new-theories-and-research/new-fractal-needs-a-name/msg54859/#msg54859
because it is already built directly out of a triangle mesh.
I might give that a go.

Hey there Vladimir! :D

Your Mobius based 3d fractals are fantastic. We are trying to understand how you do those...
Sharing some (or just one? :D ) source codes would help the fractal community and make you a big rockstar. ;) pleeease! Even just the ones you make with Fragmentarium... ;)

Welcome to fractalforums Vladimir, I was sure it would be clearer in your own words :) Thanks a lot for joining and taking the time to present the project.

BTW, in an e-mail you said
Assuming we have a 500x500x500 grid and 5cm object, then yes about the stair steps (marching cubes artifacts) but I don't get it about the 1mm fractal details. I thought there was a clear disctinction between the smallest printable details (around 0.1-0.2mm in WSF) and the minimum walls/wires thickness (Around 0.7-0.9 mm in WSF). As a matter of fact, some fine details on my 3D printed mandelbulb are visibly smaller than 1mm, but these are not walls or wires, just simple relief. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out. The devil is in the details, but if the details are invisible, no big deal!

@Tglad, your idea to use your new triangle based finding sounds great. If you can directly produce a mesh, then your "steps" (no "real" steps as I assume you wouldn't have to use marching cubes) and your "fractal details" would be at the same scale (?...)

Yes that's right bib, in fact if anyone else want to try it out the mesh files are available, as .aoi file (art of illusion)
   https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8S7Si-yu3DoM2VPWTJIc1BuV2s
and exported to a .obj file:
   https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8S7Si-yu3DoOURIMXV6WWJKSXM
They're just a surface not a closed mesh, but would just add 2 triangles at the base to make it closed, easy!

Great work Vladimir!

More 3D prints received! Cool :):) (see models here: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/3Dfractals)

The bulb is bigger than the first one and much more detailed.

However on the "beamed octahedron" (the small version with 5 iterations, whereas the big one has got 6 iterations) the smallest wires are so thin (0.7 mm) that some were broken probably during transport.

This time they came totally covered with dust, like if the operator didn't dare cleaning them being afraid to break them, and the large beamed octahedron still has got loads of dust stuck in the middle.

Still no candidate to help Vladimir optimize code for 3D fractal printing?

one can forebode, that they look pretty cool, but I can't believe, that you make all those stunning fractal images and at the same time, you seem not to be able to make an acceptable snapshot of your 3d prints. :dink:

Or was this intension, to make us buy your pieces, to get a glace on them?

lol

Here are some more decent pics:

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/349/e/7/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4fv2.jpg)

(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/349/7/b/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4ftg.jpg)

(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/349/8/b/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4fvh.jpg)

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/3/1/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4fur.jpg)

(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/4/1/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4fui.jpg)

(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/f/e/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4fu7.jpg)

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/349/b/6/untitled_by_bib993-d5o4ftx.jpg)

Better. Now try adjusting the white balance a little  ;D ;D ;D

yeahzzze! Great work.  ;D
On the bulb one can see the grainieness of the Fiji created stack-mesh. I hope some better solution than Fiji can be found soon.

The grainy aspect comes from the material, the printing process, and the fact it is not polished. Fiji OBJ conversion and faces decimation is another topic. In fact, the mesh faces cannot be seen. The problem is how to maximize the level of detail (i.e. the lowest DE Stop) under constraints: min wall thickness (0.7mm for this material, see http://www.shapeways.com/materials/material-options) and less than 1M faces, and last but not least: minimize the amount of matter to minimize the price!

really? ok, it's only a photo, but those stairs look the same as the ones I had in my fiji exports. Anyhow great proof of concept. I need to try myself soon...

Well spotted, I should have increased smoothing in Meshlab.

Here is the Fragmentarium code to render limit set of hyperbolic reflection groups.
Have fun!

Vladimir Bulatov
3D graphics Researcher,
http://shapeways.com
http://bulatov.org

Some more 3D prints. They look much less grainy in real. The Jerusalem cube in alumide is super cool!

(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/355/a/6/sierpinski_cuboctahedron___3d_printed_fractal_by_bib993-d5opbk1.jpg)

(http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/355/3/2/beamed_octahedron__small____3d_printed_fractal_by_bib993-d5opbkc.jpg)

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/355/7/d/octacube___3d_printed_fractal_by_bib993-d5opbkk.jpg)

(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/355/8/d/jerusalem_cube___3d_printed_fractal_by_bib993-d5opbkr.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/3Dfractals

Very Nice...are you producing these via Mandelbulb?

Thanks Louis!

Yes, M3D+Fiji+Meshlab+Netfabb

Hi Vladimir,

Out of curiosity, what tool do you use after Fragmentarium? Is there a direct OBJ export?

I only can do 2D rendering with Fragmentarium. I have completely separate code for 3D object generation.
I assume, the Fragmetarium can be used for generation of set of 2D slices using it's animation mechanism.
After that the set of slices can be converted into 3D object using presently existing route.

Vladimir Bulatov
http://shapeways.com
http://bulatov.org

Hi!
I try to print my fractals too, but i receive error message from Shapeways - "walls <0.7mm".
How can i check my walls width?
Thx.

In Netfabb there is a measure tool but this is manual, there is no automatic check for wall thickness unfortunately. On regular IFS fractal this is not a problem, but on more complex shapes it is more difficult visually to find the thinner walls and wires.

I have painted my bulbs, they look much better like this, it really gives them life, I am very happy with the result :)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/357/5/a/3d_printed_mandelbulbs_by_bib993-d5ovkeo.jpg)

Nice!

But I thought their natural color would be pink   :gum: :gum:

hey cool, that looks quite similar to this bulb rendering (http://lyc.deviantart.com/art/siebenfach-139038934) i did back in 2009 :D

how big can such 3d printed bulbs be, and how's the spatial resolution?

Yep, I thought about your render too :)

The size depends on the material: http://www.shapeways.com/materials/material-options

There is no concept of spatial resolution, rather of level of detail, see the same link. With the standard white plastic, layers are 0.1mm thick. Keep also in mind the 1 million faces limit and the minimum wall/wire thickness that also varies by material.

If you allow me I have two quick questions for you Vladimir:

1- After you upload your model, some tests are performed by Shapeways to check if the model is printable. Does Shapeways plan to make this check tool public? That would save a lot of time if I could perform the checks at home without having to upload big OBJ files. As I use a kind of dichotomy to make the thinnest possible walls and wires, sometimes I need to upload many times different flavors of the same model before I am satisfied. Removing these upload times would speed up the process a lot.

2- Do you plan to make publicly available your tool to convert voxel slices to OBJ? Today, I think Fiji is the only (not too complex) solution. It works, but I would be interested in testing other methods.

As a side note, for those who use Fiji, I advise to test a resampling factor of 1 instead of the default value of 2 when you save as OBJ. It gives much better results especially if the voxel is not too big (say less than 200x200x200) and the shapes very geometric and regular (squares, triangles...)

Hopefully some better tools will be available on Shapeways site soon, but I can't make exact promises.
I perfectly understand the difficulties you encounter and in our best interest is to help users.

I don't have such standalone conversion  :sad1: . I use the abfab3d library directly from my modeling code.

Vladimir Bulatov
shapeways.com (http://shapeways.com)
bulatov.org (http://bulatov.org)

Just received my first fractal metal prints ordered from shapeways.
After running 24 hours in a tumbler with steel shot they came out just perfect!
The pieces are 5cm in diameter.

Vladimir Bulatov
http://shapeways.com
http://blatov.org

Wow, great! How thick are the the thinnest wires?

Super!

Here are 3 more successful metal fractal prints printed at Shapeways.
Diameter is 5 cm. I was trying to make thin parts above 1.5 mm.
Printing folks seems to be able to deal with this.

Significant info. Metal prints technology requires post processing - infiltration of hot steel
model with molten bronze. This step requires attachment of spout/wire of 3mm in diameter,
which is grinded off by technician after the infiltration.
This means, that the piece better to have some small flat spot conveniently located
somewhere outside.
For fractal pieces this is especially important because they tend to have very wild surface.


Vladimir Bulatov
http://bulatov.org
http://shapeways.com

Thanks Vladimir for the tips and the photos! Seems like about 3/4 of my models passed the last test before printing, I can't wait to hold them in my hands!

On a side note, just found out that some folks created a tool to convert mp3s into 3D printed 33rpm records, with 16 micron z axis resolution, can you believe this? http://www.amandaghassaei.com/3D_printed_record.html

In Meshlab, has anyone tried the Poisson surface reconstruction as opposed to Laplacian smooting? Any feedback?

http://aras-p.info/blog/2012/12/14/adventures-in-3d-printing/

Wonderful. Great job bib and vb2012.

Hi bib,

A 3D Printing thread appeared at the Daz3D forums, so I stole one of your pictures and posted it there with a link to this thread!

Really should have asked first, but didn't.   :police: :siren: :police:

If that's a problem, let me know and I'll delete the image!

Thanks knighty!


No problem Sock. Can you please provide the link to the Daz3D forum thread?

Sure, here 'tis:  http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/10731/

Hi!
Nice 3d print models!
 
Try to use reduto (http://psychocore.com/index2.html (http://psychocore.com/index2.html)) from psychocore.com for smoothing, repairing and polygon reductions, it work fine for me. I use reduto without mudbox, as standalone software. Hier is help page (http://psychocore.com/help.html (http://psychocore.com/help.html)).

This is an example of my models -
(http://3d-vj.com/tmp/models/2t4.jpg)
(http://3d-vj.com/tmp/models/2t1.jpg)
(http://3d-vj.com/tmp/models/2t5.jpg)

I make 3-5 model - same fractal from different angles and merge all models in one. It turns surface smooth. Peculiar "3D anti-aliasing"  :D
best regards.

Thanks slon_ru for the link. Does Reducto also handle the isosurface extraction (that we do typically in Fiji to produce an OBJ file from a voxel stack) or only mesh cleaning and repairing?

Mesh cleaning and repairing only.

OK Thanks. Anyway I can't install it on my laptop (many dll error messages, then hexadecimal error codes... will try on my desktop later. Cheers

Woooo, some more models received, in stainless steel (gold plated and bronze plated) and Frosted detail plastic. I'll post more decent photos when I have more time.

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/3Dfractals

(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/017/f/d/cam00275_by_bib993-d5rsjy9.jpg)

(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/017/2/d/cam00276_by_bib993-d5rsjz4.jpg)

(http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/017/5/3/cam00283_by_bib993-d5rskcf.jpg)

Some more pics:

(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/020/2/a/mystic_menger_collection_by_bib993-d5s57q5.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_842320_766010_1358714026.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/842320/mystic-hypermenger.html

(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/020/f/f/jerusalem_cube_collection_by_bib993-d5s58zs.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_842442_766084_1358715956.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/842442/jerusalem-cube-jewel.html

lol, the jerusalem cube seems to attract you, lol it looks like good global illuminated renderings
hard to get an impression of the size, you said 5cm ?!

The jcube is 1.4 cm, it was a kind of test to see the differences between the materials, and this is very informative. The HyperMenger is 2cm and is absolutely fantastic!

They all look great!  :thanks1: for showing up!
But those metal things are expensive - puh.
I was thinking of producing my own fractal key chain. This would be a very exclusive piece...

http://develop3d.com/features/alpha-mike-foxtrot-to-stl
Looks like the best candidate for the STL format replacement will still be a mesh based format, AMF, much richer than the old STL, but still triangle based, not voxel based :(

Some more photos of my recent 3D prints http://www.shapeways.com/shops/3Dfractals

The various shapes and materials are extremely informative. I think I'm starting to better understand the 3D printing constraints and possibilities. In particular, steel printing has definitely the better final aspect, in great part due to the weight of the object, otherwise the plastics are very light. The good surprise is that steel offers an equivalent if not better level of detail than WS&F, providing the structure is architectured in such a way that there are no risks of breaking the thinnest wires.

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_882671_772598_1358981179.jpg)
Hexasphere 2

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_842442_772662_1358983203.jpg)
Jerusalem Cube Pendant

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843819_772578_1358980828.jpg)
Beamed Octahedron in Bronze

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844981_772752_1358987642.jpg)
Fractal cathedral

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_845083_772727_1358985833.jpg)
Big OctoKoch

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844060_772670_1358983483.jpg)
HexaSphere 1

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_798333_770121_1358887168.jpg)
Koch Rhombododecahedron

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844793_772705_1358984927.jpg)
Miniature fractal building

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843158_772546_1358980235.jpg)
MengerKoch Cube

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_845554_772730_1358986006.jpg)
TreeShell

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843351_772751_1358987128.jpg)
MiniBulb fractal

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_842839_772521_1358982217.jpg)
Organic HyperMenger

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843466_772558_1358980400.jpg)
Box Pillar

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844002_772646_1358982857.jpg)
Amazing in wire

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844451_772678_1358983615.jpg)
Bulby Pyramid

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844010_772692_1358984627.jpg)
Amazing in wire - ultra thin fractal

Wow, nice models! 1 mil. poly ?!

Most of them, yes.

fantastic work! It is definitely improving. 
:cantor_dance:
Nice to see you now also going for the sculptural ones in addition to the basic shapes.

Thanks taurus. Out of curiosity, which one do you like best?

That's really hard to say - I've got several favorites. The organic Hypermenger maybe stands a bit over the others, but I also like the TreeShell, Amazing in wire and the Miniature fractal building, just to name the most appealing ones. Thanks again for showing!

Interesting, thanks! Your preferences are quite different from the average, with Hexasphere 2 and Beamed Octahedron on top of the list. I didn't get much feedback though, so it's not really a meaningful stat.

I would be glad to hear more feedback from the forum members.

nothing new to me!  :dink:

Wow! really cool.

 I find most of them nice, but if you ask me witch one I like to have on my table; the Hexasphere 2, Beamed Octahedron in Bronze, Organic HyperMenger, Box Pillar and Amazing in wire are the one I like the most.

Thanks! I did a tweak of Box Pillar, check this out:

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843542_812113_1360699827.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/843542/amazing-box.html

For the Frenchies who remember Chapi Chapo, here is a Kalibox-based hybrid, printed in polyamide and painted with 3 coats of Humbrol enamel.

(http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/043/c/0/red_flake_by_bib993-d5upuu0.gif)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/857334/red-flake.html

I heard "We-want-more-spin-ning-frac-tals!"

OK, OK :D

(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/043/1/3/blue_bone_by_bib993-d5uq5cq.gif)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS MASTER

 a whopping charming display sparkling, in every way, with undulating centrifugal waves hypnotizing in its spread, depth and majesty, art thy art from assets in unbounded space to grace the human race, spinning in fixed vortex space, with so many stories untold, dancing with the glories of these ocular treasures!
Thanks 2 you we do, Master, pray tell who B she ?
A wrought iron looking lock to dark secrets in sequestration, disguising a beautiful girl underneath with those tones of dark metal, hiding her flowers petals, who pray tell be she, a Balenciaga, she is a ballerina, a dancer of ballet, we cant help but watch her body sway. Thanks . . . do more!








.

There are some guy claiming, that he themself at home made a 3D printer. No fractal throught:

http://vk.com/album3660793_161395751?rev=1 (http://vk.com/album3660793_161395751?rev=1)


http://www.youtube.com/user/radusava?feature=watch (http://www.youtube.com/user/radusava?feature=watch)

Yes, the Prusa Mendel is a very popular open source DIY 3D printer. Many people are building their own.

Found this blog: http://www.treblig.org/3dbrot/mandelbulb.html with some sample code to transform voxel into STL and this candidate tool to replace Fiji in the workflow: http://amide.sourceforge.net/
Note the "self-referencing" name - AMIDE: Amide's a Medical Imaging Data Examiner :)

Cool... and a very strange (disconnected (?) ) mandelbulb!  O0

Thx. I can"t use Amide to render my 900x900x900 stack :(. "No memory" error. Imho - 500x500x500 is max for Amide. It is to low.

Some more prints, this time I tried sandstone, and I'm pleased with the result :)

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_900443_839527_1361916877.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_900443_839528_1361916924.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/900443/power6-mandelbulb.html

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_839455_1361914705.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_839456_1361914705.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_839457_1361914704.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_839458_1361914708.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/897361/amazing-fractal-bulb.html

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_884363_839500_1361916109.jpg)
http://www.shapeways.com/model/884363/mystic-hypermenger-2.html

Cool ! Great work, bravo!  :beer: I send pics to facebook.

Thanks slon_ru :)

Here is a quick and dirty pic of one of my latest models, back lit by a LED candle.

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/070/a/5/img00040_20130311_1527_by_bib993-d5xop5w.jpg)

I was also happy to see Tim at Orbit Trap commenting my works, and Kraftwerk's as well: http://orbittrap.ca/?p=4552

Cool! A rendering technique m3d does not have yet: subsurface scattering!   :o

Some more pictures of 3D fractal objects. Hope you like them!

http://www.shapeways.com/model/925734/menger-grid.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_925734_922206_1365265128.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_925734_922205_1365265098.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_925734_922207_1365265119.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/920143/organic-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_920143_922209_1365265186.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/897361/amazing-fractal-bulb.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_922210_1365265265.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_922211_1365265265.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_922212_1365265264.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_897361_922213_1365265266.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/888487/amazing-cube.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_888487_922218_1365266831.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/866003/fractal-tribox.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_866003_922221_1365265522.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_866003_922223_1365265519.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_866003_922224_1365265521.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/865454/fractal-spider.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_865454_922225_1365265725.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_865454_922226_1365265732.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/861267/menger-cube.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_861267_922227_1365265855.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_861267_922229_1365265868.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/859460/hyper-fractal-flake.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_859460_922231_1365265924.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/857364/kalijulia-flake.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_857364_922233_1365265986.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/856213/fractal-urn.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_856213_922235_1365266117.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/845554/treeshell-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_845554_922237_1365266189.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/844981/fractal-cathedral.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844981_922239_1365266372.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844981_922238_1365266317.jpg)
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_844981_922240_1365266319.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/843351/minibulb-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_843351_922246_1365266548.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/842839/organic-hypermenger-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_842839_922248_1365266599.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/805955/power-8-mandelbulb-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_805955_922249_1365266672.jpg)

http://www.shapeways.com/model/798008/sierpinski-cuboctahedron-fractal.html
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_798008_922250_1365266704.jpg)

dude, dont you think you exaggerate? nevertheless, beautiful creations,
i like the box shape with the tree bubbles  coming out of it, and that blue lighted structure really looks fascinating

dont forget to include any usability in it perhaps, a boock shelf, an ashtray, a plate for drinks or something would make it more useful ;)

Master BIB993, born are thou to lead the iconic way, so that out of the subatomic, one may say, darkness shall seise 2 B, and upon the earth fractal flowers shall B, falling like rainfall graciously, and he with eyes may C, and he without eyes, blind will touch, and in time, he who is tired may sit, obliterating strife is it, showing new fractal beauty, where before, there was none .
Thank you! Thank you! For all that you have done.   .   .   . both the one, n the two, n the three, n four! OMG we cannot keep score! please do more! When as a child, he she  sees his mother, for the very first time, he she, doesn't know her as a person, but as a god, glory 2 thee on the way 2 becoming a great mentor, shall B thee, our pleasure to C this Mastery, is exciting 2 us!


 





.

Thanks a lot ck and weavers, each in your own style ;)

@ck: art doesn't have to be useful, and KRAFTWERK makes already beautiful jewels now :)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1650950769/rigidbot-3d-printer (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1650950769/rigidbot-3d-printer)

3 of my 3D printed sculptures (+ some 2D prints) are until June 16th at the exhibition "Biennale d'art contemporain de Viroflay"

http://www.ville-viroflay.fr/temps-libre/culture/94.html

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/139/b/d/img00051_20130518_1759_by_bib993-d65scsi.jpg)

(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/139/c/4/img00048_20130518_1758_by_bib993-d65scsn.jpg)

cool, thanks for noting!
could be worth an own thread, all of the objects you present there are very nice and intriguing, the colors are really good

Thank you Christian:)

Greetings and salutations Master Bib993

intro : Out of one comes two, out of two, come three, out three dimensionally come four, floored are we, thus, by your ability, to do all this, and put it into reality: these gorgeous ancient gems! Love them! They possess an exquisite delicate quality about them, love the taste of organic colorings too! Truly, you give them a elaborate and highly intriguing appearance, to your already good looking pieces!  Thanks for keeping us updated! Thanks again, for sharing Master Bib993








.

Thanks weavers! It's really pleasant to see my fractals among a wide variety of other artworks. Yesterday I visited the exhibition and had the chance to talk to the public. People are intrigued and ask many questions. The gallery wants me to participate in another exhibition in November on the theme fantastic, other worlds, etc...

A well deserved congratulatioons bib,
The 3D prints and the hung prints both look fantastic. What scale are the 3D prints? Beautiful use of color on those guys, are they from shapeways and are they offered for sale there?
Again, nice job

Thanks Louis. The sculpture are painted, what i get from Shapeways is the raw material, then there is a lot of manual work. They are about 10 to 15 cm big. You can spot them in the other picture.

Cool!  O0

In case anyone is interested, Shapeways released a new flexible plastic.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BNH9nf-CAAEm-Zz.jpg:large)

Original model in white polyamide (rigid):
(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_882671_772598_1360770254.jpg)

Yippeeeee! I won a 3D printing competition :D

2nd Runner-up for best 3D printable portfolio

(http://www.cgtrader.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/amazing_fractal_bulb_3d_model_stl_ab465c45-c4b9-4707-b39b-cc0285928c9f-1.jpg)

<<
Fractals are kind of magical. Jeremie Brunet has proved that he knows how to deal with them. He creates fragile form, combines complex ornaments and aesthetics together. 3D printing technology will help the fractal art enter the mainstream.

Stunning designs have amazed the jury. We are already thinking about having such a cute piece of art in our office. Do not stop, Jeremie, you have mad skills!
>>

http://www.cgtrader.com/blog/2013/07/12/it-was-made-real-meet-the-winners-of-3d-printing-competition/

Well done  O0

 :music:

Awesome. Way to spread the fractal love!

More 3Dprints! Some are old models that I have re-printed in different materials or painted/post-processed, some are new models. Always good fun to try new materials at Shapeways. Which model do you prefer?

As usual, the photos underline the rough surface feeling which does not look that rough in reality.

If you are in Paris and want to see them for real, come at La Villette on Nov 23rd, I'll be at the Ars Mathematica booth http://www.cite-sciences.fr/fr/conferences-du-college/programme/c/1248138762285/-/p/1239022827697/

(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/308/f/c/fractal_3d_printed_in_metal_by_bib993-d6t1rhn.jpg)

(http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2013/308/d/d/image_02_by_bib993-d6t1rtc.jpg)

(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/308/2/5/hexakoch_by_bib993-d6t1rh5.jpg)

(http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2013/308/a/4/image_01__2__by_bib993-d6t1rgc.jpg)

(http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/308/5/f/image_01_by_bib993-d6t1rfv.jpg)

(http://th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2013/308/0/d/image_03__2__by_bib993-d6t1rf9.jpg)

(http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/308/b/3/image_03_by_bib993-d6t1rej.jpg)

(http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2013/308/7/6/image_04_by_bib993-d6t1rdi.jpg)

(http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/308/c/5/image_05_by_bib993-d6t1rch.jpg)

(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/293/b/9/photo_3__2____da_by_bib993-d6r52bb.jpg)

Great !  :beer: :beer:

very nice ones among them, my favorite would be:
http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2013/308/a/4/image_01__2__by_bib993-d6t1rgc.jpg

Thanks :beer:


Same here, it looks really neat ;) However it has got a color problem on the other side. There is a small "silverish" area, I guess due to to the infusing process, not sure of the details. I'll contact customer service to see if this is normal.

Great work getting those thin wires to print.
Lovely objects too!  :beer:

Been busy with many new 3D prints in different materials. Here's just one pic, this one is in gold plated brass.

(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/338/d/c/dragon_by_bib993-d6woznr.jpg)

Wow, looks classy! ;D
quat-julia or what?

Thanks, Mr. taurus! Of course, Julia Quat :)

One more pic. I designed this trophy that was the given as a prize to the winner of a mathematical literature contest. The object is made of an alloy of steel and bronze and is about 10cm in diameter.

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/338/6/e/photo_4___copy_by_bib993-d6wp0h1.jpg)

This one is in brass, hand polished. It's 2cm big.
5 iterations.The small holes are 0.4mm in diameter.

(http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_1476253_1764905_1386171390.jpg)

very nice, favourite would be the Julia Quat. They seem to be getting better and better. :)

Thanks mclarekin!

And now with color printer!

(https://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/674x501_1522393_1770975_1386251697.jpg)

It maybe appropriate to revive this topic  :dink:

I goggled voxel to obj today which came up with the following:

http://voxel.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Import%20Export&referringTitle=Home

has anyone tried to produce OBJ files of fractals from Voxels created in MD3 using this program?

Making fractal obj files is my favorite way to play with fractals!

This thread is dedicated to the subject, even if it is a bit old it still has a lot to offer : http://www.fractalforums.com/tutorials/voxel-image-stack-and-then-what/

I have since lost my website  (Thank the economy for that!) so many of my images are missing from that thread   :'(  but some remain.

I use Carrara rather than Blender, but the obj files work in any 3D Package you like.

Had a look at Magic Voxel and couldn't get started - my voxel stacks are all png and it only takes tga.  I know I could convert, but fiji does the job with ease, so I'll stick with that for now.

I wont post images in this thread as it's meant for physical objects, but here's a mandelbulb being dropped on a Cow's head in Carrara : http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/cowbulb_zpsbec7bc40.gif  and my favorite still I did using fractal obj files : http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=9736

If you need it, fiji can be had here:  http://fiji.sc/wiki/index.php/Downloads

Have fun and feel free to post your results in our gallery   O0

Sorry to hear that. I started a blog at Blogger.com, Their is not cost.  Starting a web page is very simple, with a large number of styles to choose from. I store images for free at Picasa with links to my Blogger web pages, the same with AVI links to You tube.  And you can access the entire process through your single Gmail account login. :)

Thanks for the thought, but I can't use free sites as I do a lot of work for Naughty Adult Sites, and I have never seen a free site which allows Naughtiness   :devil:

Plus...  I sort of ...  Boycott google.  I even lost my youtube account over that and now use Vimeo.

So...  Have you had any luck with Magic Voxel, or tried Fiji?

MV looks like it may eventually be a great tool but is still too early in it's development.  I've had great luck with Fiji myself.

I wonder if the folks making these great 3D Prints would care to detail the process they use to get their voxel stacks into 3D file formats?  Gotta try and bring this back on topic so we don't get accused of hijacking the thread to say bad things about google!

Its on my to do list... hopefully today! I also found a great you tube video on this subject

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpu-DZs9HXU

Some time ago someone asked about experiences with 3D printing, so I wanted to share mine.

In order to generate the geometry I wrote a small Java-program, the uses Marching Cubes to generate polygons from a distance field. Using distance fields makes it possible to get a better tesselation than using a boolean 'isInside' function. Since my Marching Cube implementation never needs to store more than two 'slices' in memory at the same time, there is really no limit to the number of polygons I can create this way (at least not if I save them directly to disk). I wrote a simple OBJ exporter, and an even simpler binary STL exporter, because the OBJ files grew terrible large.

But then I realized that Shapeways only allow maximum 1M polygons. So I needed to remesh my 5-10M polygon files. I tried different remeshing tools, most of which did not work, and/or produced strange artifacts. In the end I settled for Meshlab's "Quadratic Edge Collapse Detection" to reduce the polygon count, with some further cleanup in Netfabb - this was based on suggestions found on the Shapeway website. I think there must be better ways to this though - I was not impressed by the quality of the resulting mesh.

(http://www.blog.hvidtfeldts.net/media/meshia.png)

Next step was uploading to Shapeways. After ordering a print I got the a mail saying my objects could not be printed because of too fine detail. Well, there is an option to 'print anyways', which I used, and I could not see any problems with my objects.

Here is my models on Shapeways:
http://www.shapeways.com/designer/syntopia

And here is an image of the final physical Mandelbulb:
(http://www.blog.hvidtfeldts.net/media/mandelbulb-3dprint.JPG)

I had hoped for a bit more detail, but it seemed hard to squeeze in. I also hollowed out the Mandelbulb to reduce production cost.

One interesting thing, I noticed was that Shapeways was much less picky about input formats than I expected. I had heard that input objects had to be watertight, 2-manifold, orientable, non-overlapping, and what not, but that does not seem to be the case. I tried uploading one of my old Structure Synth OBJ exports (which are really just a 'polygons soup'), and Shapeways did not complain.

(http://www.blog.hvidtfeldts.net/media/ss3d.jpg)

Now, I do plan to explore this topic a bit more, and probably release a version of my meshing tool which can be used by other people than myself. Currently, it is only possible to build a mesh based on a distance function specified in Java (dynamically compiled using Groovy), but I plan to add support for GLSL as well, for faster evaluation on the GPU, and also image dumps from other software.

But if somebody have any tricks for improving 3D structure (especially wrt to reducing the number of polygons!) I'd like to hear them.
 

Nice job! So you can directly export the stl file from fragmentarium or is this a separate program?
As to polygon count reduction, I did not find better than Meshlab's "Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation"

Hi bib, it is a separate program as of now. I'm experimenting a bit with Java, because there are some nice mesh libraries (in particular Hemesh), that I want to explore in order to improve the mesh quality.

Nice to see, that there is still motion in preparation of printable meshes.
I remember my expierience with mystic fractal programs, which export a native mesh, without the "cubified" voxel stack approach. My problems with voxel stacks are not the quality of the initial mesh. It is the lack of possibilities when it comes to optimisation. I described it here in detail. http://www.fractalforums.com/format-printing-and-post-production/shapeways-for-3d-printed-fractals/msg55054/#msg55054 (http://www.fractalforums.com/format-printing-and-post-production/shapeways-for-3d-printed-fractals/msg55054/#msg55054)
So my question is to you Syntopia. Does your Program export triangulated point meshes, or are they block-meshes like voxel stacks are?

Thanks for the hint about Hemesh, as I still have mesh-export for my software in mind. Flame-fractals as real objects, a thing I'm really fascinated of, all the time :-) And thanks to all of you for investigating this 3D-printing-stuff, it is overall very fascinating, but I had no time for it, yet

Andreas

Shapeways actually has a quite impressive tool for working with voxels, called ShapeJS: http://shapejs.shapeways.com/

It sends small JavaScript-programs to a Shapeways-server which evalutes them and creates a polygon representation.
Interestingly, it uses a Java OpenSource API for doing the voxel computations on the serverside, called AbFab3D: http://abfab3d.com/, which might be useful to the ones doing Java-stuff here at the forums.

It seems to be doing a good job on e.g. the Gyroid: http://shapejs.shapeways.com/examples, try comparing with my own Marching Cubes export: https://twitter.com/SyntopiaDK/statuses/434336584452685825


My software creates a triangle mesh based on uniform grid sampling of a distance function - done using the Marching Cubes algorithm, which is perhaps the most wellknown meshing algorithm. So it is not terribly novel. I'm hoping to be able to optimize and reduce these triangles in a better way that Meshlab allows, but I am beginning to doubt that there are much better methods then the ones implemented in Meshlab - I tried a few other academic remeshers (found on the net) and these did not produce better results.
 

Thanks so far for the info Syntopia. :beer: I guess the raw marching cube algorithm creates simillar problems in optimization as voxel stacks. I read some about simplifications and improvements of marching cubes, but my knowledge is far too little, to take any advantage that. In the end I guess, I need to contact Terry Gintz and ask him, what kind of wizzardery he is using, to create his meshes...

>>edit. hm, the more I read the more interresting this marching cubes stuff is getting. maybe I judged too early. Looking forward to see future developments...

I'm curious, what use can be made with the output.x3db file format? 
It seems strange to me develop yet another 3d file format. Don't we have enough of them already?   :)

Move over Shapeways! :) Larger 3d printing technology is on its way!

Giant Chinese 3D printer builds 10 houses in just 1 day.... check it out!

http://rt.com/news/155220-3d-printer-houses-china/

New apollonian style 3D prints designed with Incendia:

White Strong & Flexible octahedron
(https://images2.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1913632_2853894_1400259660.jpg)
www.shapeways.com/model/1913632/apollonian-octahedron.html

Gold plated steel cube
(https://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1913067_2853866_1400259740.jpg)
Frosted detail cube
(https://images4.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1913067_2853868_1400259740.jpg)
White Strong & Flexible cube
(https://images3.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1913067_2853865_1400259740.jpg)
www.shapeways.com/model/1913067/apollonian-cube.html

Frosted detail tetrahedron
(https://images4.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1910264_2853830_1400258546.jpg)
www.shapeways.com/model/1910264/apollonian-tetrahedron-small.html

Hope you like them!

Very nice! Seems, that incendia provides much sharper models, than the fuzzy voxel stacks of m3d. Really looking good...

Yes, Incendia exports directly in STL with a choice of algorithms to produce an optimized mesh. If you draw a parallel with traditional rendering, it's like M3D+Fiji produces an aliased image, which is not a problem if you render at high resolution and then smooth and scale down, whereas Incendia produces an already "anti-aliased" mesh, which somehow simplifies the workflow. But Incendia has some drawbacks too...
Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd6ceu17kHM
Model made with Incendia
Size: 24.5 cm / 9.6 in.
Wire thickness: 0.8-1mm
Density: 0.22%

(https://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1980200_3053245_1402153983.jpg)
(https://images4.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_1980200_3053247_1402153983.jpg)
(http://)
https://www.shapeways.com/model/1980200/apollonian-tetrahedron-xxl.html

Beautiful stuff Bib....and so delicate....
Nice job

Great printing (and photography) :beer: :beer: :beer:

If you understand French, here's an interesting article which explains that fractals (the Menger cube in particular) have been at the inception of the invention of stereolithography (3D printing) back in 1984.

http://i3dactu.fr/on-a-retrouve-les-vrais-inventeurs-de-l-imprimante-3d/

(http://i3dactu.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/inventeurs.jpg)

A couple of months ago I had the chance to meet Professor André, the true inventor of stereolithography, who told me the research was now focusing on volumetric 3D printing (as opposed to layer by layer as it works today)...

All great stuff, don't quite understand volumetric printing though....will you start with a volume and remove mass? not sure how that would work....but great stuff

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn503268f

@slon ru,  interesting link, thanks.  :)

Shapeways is now too expensive for my fractals :-( . Does anynone have technique to lower cost or another website ?