3D Printing with Sound

Un-Paralleled Layers with Sound Amplitude

Erin Hunt
MDes Tech 2021
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1 Detail of a toolpath using amplitudes from Adele’s song Rolling in the Deep

This group’s work (including Sana Sharma and Katarina Richter-Lunn) was motived by the study of sound. Each member researched a different facet. In addition to working with sound, each group member found ways to manipulate the inputted sound. For this portion amplitude was used as a means to analysis un-paralleled layers in Fused Deposition Modeling. The original sound was printed by a LulzBot Mini 2 3D printer. The sounds it made while printing were then recorded. This information was processed into an additional 3D print to create the printer’s response to the inputted sound. A function was developed in C# that allowed for the extrusion multiplier to be varied depending on the distance of the next layer relative to each printed coordinate. As the layers are more compressed the extrusion multiplier is lowered, the inverse is true for those layers that are less compressed. This is relative to the approximate height of each layer. The rate was iteratively determined to find the most successful rate for the 3D printer. The process began in P5.js where the amplitude values of a MP3 file were recorded to a Tab Separated Value (TSV) file to manipulate in Grasshopper3D.

Project video
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2 Matrix of results of the three songs used to document the process
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3 The resulting 3D prints from the original songs; “Let it Be,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and “Rolling in the Deep.”