3d Printed Soundwave (dynamic)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by GabrielGullbergh, Jan 18, 2013.

  1. Hiyall,

    I have an idea involving 3d printed extruded soundwaves, sort of similar to the Vibe iphone case process.

    Also similar concept:
    Tōhoku Japanese Earthquake Audio Sculpture
    [​IMG]

    I am wondering if this is at all possible without collaborating directly with shapeways as Ana Hevasi did at SXSW (assuming SW is too busy and I cant wait to attend the next meetup).

    I would need some sort of program that analyzes a sound clip and outputs extruded 3d soundwave model. I could probably write a program that does that with some help and about 6 months time but who's that patient....

    Only quick way I see is to manually create the soundwaves myself with multiple software programs.

    Wondering if anythis like this exists yet. Any ideas suggestions are much appreciated.

     
  2. Kaetemi
    Kaetemi Member
    Writing a tool to generate that stuff is only a few hours work at most.
     
  3. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    All you'd need is some way to convert the sound to numbers, and then you could use OpenSCAD to generate the model. It'd be easy.
     
  4. a great starting point, looks like I have some reading to do!

    My main concern is keeping it simple one-step process for the user, which would require either:

    A. shapeways customize (co-creator) option to attach audio to an order

    B. sell it on esty.com or similar sites, and compile the 3d audio model myself to have it printed by shapeways and shipped to the user

    C. not have user customized audio, only cliche and memorable quotes, like perhaps soundwaves from a part of a famous song or a computer generated 'i love you'
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2013
  5. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    This bit of OpenSCAD code generates a "waveform" from the first 100 digits of PI

    $fn=128;
    a=[0,3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,3,5,8,9,7,9,3,2,3,8,4,6,2,6,4,3,3,8,3 ,2,7,9,5,0,2,8,8,4,1,9,7,1,6,9,3,9,9,3,7,5,1,0,5,
    8,2,0,9,7,4,9,4,4,5,9,2,3,0,7,8,1,6,4,0,6,2,8,6,2,0,8,9,9,8, 6,2,8,0,3,4,8,2,5,3,4,2,1,1,7,0,6,7,9,0 ];

    for (i=[1:50]){
    translate([0,0,i])cylinder(r1=a[i*2-1]+1,r2=a[i*2]+1,h=1/2,c enter=true);
    translate([0,0,i+.5])cylinder(r1=a[i*2]+1,r2=a[i*2+1]+1,h=1/ 2,center=true);
    }

    PI.jpg
     
  6. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    and here's the STL generated from the above.
     

    Attached Files:

    • PI.stl

      File size:
      4.8 MB
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  7. Last edited: Jan 18, 2013
  8. If you are a fan of MatLab the wavread function is quite good at producing numbers from a wav file.