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This article will guide you through creating 3d stamps (using a 3d printer) from Adrinka patterns generated using the Adrinka tool on community.csdt.rpi.edu (https://community.csdt.rpi.edu/applications/17). This assumes the following:

There are 3 primary steps; converting the image to grayscale, inverting the colors, and converting grayscale image to .stl. We will use GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/), heightmap2stl.jar (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:15276). You will be required to Java (JRE) installed on your machine to use the heightmap2stl.jar file (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html).

Convert the Adrinka symbol to a PNG

This step is very simple; right click on the CSnap stage and click “Pic..”. This will open the image in a new tab in your browser. Simply save the image somewhere handy.Export stage to PNG

Converting to Grayscale and inverting

The next step is a little bit more tricky; we need to convert the image to grayscale, then invert the colors (“black” represents a canyon, and white represents the sky in a heightmap, but we want the symbol extruded).

Make sure you have GIMP installed, then open the image and convert it to grayscale.

Convert image to grayscale

And the last step here is to invert the colors, then resave the image to the same folder you saved heightmap2stl.jar in, with the name “image.png”.

Invert the colors

Export from GIMP to png

Extruding the image

This next part is the most tricky. Download the heightmap2stl.jar and put it somewhere. Next, you need to open a command prompt (don’t panic!). In windows, do this by pressing start, type “cmd”, then hit enter. First, verify that the command “java” (just type “java” into the black box then hit enter) does something like this:

<span>[charles@aura ~]$ java
Usage: java [-options] class [args...]
           (to execute a class)
   or  java [-options] -jar jarfile [args...]
           (to execute a jar file)
where options include:
    -d32	  use a 32-bit data model if available
    -d64	  use a 64-bit data model if available
    -server	  to select the "server" VM
                  The default VM is server,
                  because you are running on a server-class machine.

    -cp <class search path of directories and zip/jar files>
    -classpath <class search path of directories and zip/jar files>
                  A : separated list of directories, JAR archives,
                  and ZIP archives to search for class files.
    -D<name>=<value>
                  set a system property
    -verbose:[class|gc|jni]
                  enable verbose output
    -version      print product version and exit
    -version:<value>
                  require the specified version to run
    -showversion  print product version and continue
    -jre-restrict-search | -no-jre-restrict-search
                  include/exclude user private JREs in the version search
    -? -help      print this help message
    -X            print help on non-standard options
    -ea[:<packagename>...|:<classname>]
    -enableassertions[:<packagename>...|:<classname>]
                  enable assertions with specified granularity
    -da[:<packagename>...|:<classname>]
    -disableassertions[:<packagename>...|:<classname>]
                  disable assertions with specified granularity
    -esa | -enablesystemassertions
                  enable system assertions
    -dsa | -disablesystemassertions
                  disable system assertions
    -agentlib:<libname>[=<options>]
                  load native agent library <libname>, e.g. -agentlib:hprof
                  see also, -agentlib:jdwp=help and -agentlib:hprof=help
    -agentpath:<pathname>[=<options>]
                  load native agent library by full pathname
    -javaagent:<jarpath>[=<options>]
                  load Java programming language agent, see java.lang.instrument
    -splash:<imagepath>
                  show splash screen with specified image
See http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/index.html for more details.</span>

If it does not, you need to follow these instructions: https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml

Once that is done, do the following:

cd Downloads

java -jar heightmap2stl.jar image.png 4 8

Hit enter after each line! You should then have a file called image.stl, which can be imported into your 3d printing software and printed.


Content © 2022 Charles Hathaway