One of the things that has been rattling round my head for many years is the idea of 3D printing from an SEM image. I know, it’s a common issue and one you’ve all heard many, many times.
In a previous post, I mentioned how I’d done some of this already using Blender and a bit of artistic licence. What I made needed to be printed in two part (one white, the other yellow) because I didn’t have access to a multicolour printer.
Scrolling through Blender instruction videos (as you do) I saw a post by Architecture Topics on how to convert an image into a 3D Element.
This pinged a synapse in my brain and I wondered if the SEM of the broken oil droplet I took some years ago could be used in the same way.
How hard would it be to convert the original image to a 3D Element?
Rendered version of the converted image. I’ve stuck to black and white since electrons don’t do colour. I could reasonably render this with a gold effect since the sample prep involved coating with gold to get better imaging.
It took a while, but I got there. For the final render, I put the converted image into a box to hide the ragged edges of the conversion. Also I had the opportunity to go into my old work and have a go on the 3D printer there.
After a bit of faffing (because I’d not applied a solidify modifier to the final image) I got a .stl file that the slicer said would print.
My first attempt wasn’t great. I’d only applied enough solidify modifier to give the final print a thin shell. To quickly fix this, rather than going back into Blender and increasing the solidify level, I set the slicer to do 100% infill.
That didn’t work. I’d need to go back to Blender and learn how best to use the 3D toolbox that I learned about while I was doing this.
Grim up North Heath 
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