March 25, 2019
Description
Dual Letter Blocks Illusion Customizer
This is a display stand made of a sequence of blocks that are each shaped like two different letters when viewed from two orthogonal viewpoints. The technical name for this type of thing is a 3-dimensional ambigram. You can make a stand with any words or names of your choosing by running the customizer app.
You can use letters, numbers, a space character, or any of the special characters: $&<>*+@/\♥♠♦♣♪♫♀♂←→π. You should use a capital letter "o" instead of a zero because the zero has a dot in the centre that would be printed in mid-air. You cannot use the ❤ glyph; it is not available in the font used. You must use the ♥ glyph if you want a heart. You can copy it from here and paste it into the customizer field.
You could also make a 3D monogram of your initials with just a single letter block. If you want a triple-letter 3D monogram block try my Customizable Triple Letter Blocks Ambigram. It can also make models with triple words and phrases.
The "I♥U MOM" & "I♥U DAD" models in the photos have the letter blocks scaled to 80% in the Z dimension. Those STLs have a Z80 suffix in the filename. Also included are "I♥U MOM", "I♥U MUM", and "I♥U DAD" models as generated by the customizer. So, if you're looking to make a cool Mother's Day gift or Father's Day gift, this thing has what you need, no matter which side of the pond you're on.
Running the Customizer
Thingiverse hadn't run their customizer queue from Jul 10, 2020 to Aug 4, 2022 and may stop running it at any time again, so if they don't process your customized job, you will have to install and run OpenSCAD (free software) on your own computer to process the code to create your own customized models. See DrLex's instructions linked below for further details.
How to Run Customizer on Your Own Computer
The font used is Overpass Mono Bold from the Google Fonts repository. It is included with this model and is also available at:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Overpass+Mono
To make a font available to OpenSCAD you have three options:
The OpenSCAD "Help/Font List" menu item shows what fonts are available, so if it doesn't show up in the list as shown in the second image of this thing then it is not available for use and you will need to try again.
For additional details, see the Using Fonts and Styles section on the following page:
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Text
Although the instructions in the customizer tell you to use UPPERCASE characters only, using lower case characters is fine as long as they're paired up with characters of the same height; bass/drum is fine, but bass/fish isn't because the last letters of the two words(s and h) are different heights. If you want to use any of the special characters that aren't on your keyboard, you can copy them from above and paste them into the customizer.
Printing with supports
Not all letters require support, so you might be able to get away without supports if you don't use any of the letters C,G, or S. Those letters absolutely require support. The letters E,F,I,P,T, and Z should also have supports, but they can be printed without if you don't mind clipping and sanding the messy first several layers of the unsupported areas where supports should be used.
If your model does need supports, you'll probably want to use soluble supports if that's an option available to you. If your model has a non-zero base, it will require support structures on the model itself and not just on the build plate only. If soluble supports isn't an option, you might want to print the letters separate from the base and use Cura's tree support structure. It's still experimental and is glitchy, but I have had good success with it: whenever it generates messed up structures I just move the model and then moved it back and get it to regenerate.
If you're not using soluble supports, I'd recommend printing a test of the worst letter combination that you plan on printing and tuning the support settings with it. To that end, I have included the "W/G" letter block to go along with the "WELCOME/GOODBYE" model. If you generate a model with your desired words or names, examine it in your slicer with supports enabled and determine which looks like the worst letter combination for support removal. Then generate a model with only that block to use to tune your support settings.
If you're not going to paint it, printing with white filament would be a good idea since all scars from the support structure will be white no matter what color filament you use, but the scars won't be visible with white filament. Lighter colors leave less visible scars than darker colors.
If you're using soluble supports, you might want to use black filament or another dark color to reduce the visibility of shadows.
Technical Info
The font used is Overpass Mono Bold from the Google Fonts repository. The choice was very limited as it had to be available to the Thingiverse customizer, it had to be monospaced, and the Q had to be distinguishable from an O with the descender portion cut off. This was the only font that fit all the criteria.
Update: 2019-11-07
Added capability to use some glyphs from the Segoe UI Symbols font. This font is not available in the Thingiverse customizer so it can only be used if running OpenSCAD locally on your own computer. It is a Microsoft font that first became available in Windows 7.
The additional glyphs that are available now are: evergreen-tree, deciduous-tree, blossom, maple-leaf, wine-glass, tropical-drink, beer-mug, cat, dog, and ok-hand-sign.
###Some of My Designs
Click an image below (opens in a new tab) or go to my designs page and see them all.
If you see some thing that you like , please click the Like button and turn that heart red .
License:
Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike
Lyl3
