The 3D printing slicer IdeaMaker made by Raise3D recently implemented an innovative feature in their latest version 4.1.1 called texturing. Texturing allows you to wrap a greyscale image around your part basically, and depending on the grey value of the image, it will slightly morph the outer perimeters. You might have seen the videos from Angus over on Makers Muse and Joe from Breaks’n’Makes, where they used this feature to add a unique, visual touch to their part. Well, I’m usually not the figurines and decorative parts guy, so when I saw Raise3D implement that into their IdeaMaker slicer, I instead thought of my washing machine. Washing Machine? Yes, washing machine, or many other things that are made from sheet metal. To stiffen up the thin steel exterior for saving weight, manufacturers add specific bead patterns to their parts to dramatically increase the stiffness and strength. Take a look at this piece of paper. In its initial form, it’s barely able to support itself. By just adding some minor folds, it becomes by orders of magnitude stiffer and stronger.

The stiffness of a section under bending is described by the area moment of inertia. On a simple, rectangular section, it’s linearly dependent on its width but the height of the section is going into the equation by the power of 3.

So just slightly increasing the height adds a huge amount of stiffness. By folding the paper, we practically increase exactly that height. In reality it’s a bit more complex, because we shift the material around a bit, but I think you understand why this method is so effective for lightweight sheet metal design and why you find it everywhere!

But let’s get back to 3D printing. Vase mode, so printing a part with a single outline in a continuous spiral, is a very efficient method to print even big parts in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, with very simple shapes, the parts end up being very floppy. Something else you might have also already seen but never really knew where it came from is that especially simple shapes also tend to severely warp during printing. This is getting worse the bigger they get and especially the more warp-prone a material is. PLA is usually very forgiving because it barely warps, but as soon as you use PETG or even ABS it can get really messy. Flat but also curved surfaces end up severely deformed. Why is that happening?

Well, in 3D printing, we usually print in layers. Each new layer is put hot on the already existing one. While it cools down, it shrinks and, therefore, basically pulls on the already existing one.

I demonstrated that here with pieces of tape that I pre-stretch and then put on top of each other. At some point, the internal stresses are high enough that the simulated part releases from the base and curls up. Also, our 3D prints have significant internal stresses in them, that can relieve in a way that the part releases from the base or can make our design basically buckle in on itself. And this is what happened with these thin-walled parts. Each subsequent layer pulls more and more on the previous one until it, at some point, buckles in one or the other direction.

This is also one of the reasons why these 3D-printed airplanes are still mainly made from PLA. They are often mostly printed with just a single wall and even the warping tendency of PETG can make those surfaces buckle in on themselves. A way people still achieve to print these parts in materials like ABS is by using a heated chamber that reduces the internal stresses during printing. But that’s not what’s were taking a look at today.

The texturing module within ideaMaker can help us tackle both problems; making thin-walled part stiffer and make them even printable in the first place. Texturing allows us to add basically bead patterns on our parts, without the need to manually design that in CAD. This does add a tiny amount of material because the texture path slightly gets longer but it let’s us tweak the stiffness of a section to how we’d like it. If you, by the way, find this video helpful, make sure to subscribe and select the notification bell for more like this in the future!

If you’ve never used IdeaMaker it’s free to download. After the installation just browse the online library if there is a profile for your exact printer. If not, just look for something rather similar and later adjust the details. Then it’s as easy as importing your part and selecting the texture icon. Just add your pattern of choice by selecting one from the library or choosing one of your own. Make sure it’s tileable.

If you want to get inspired, just google for “pattern,” and you’ll find lots of things that might suit you. I added the textures I used on my website for downloading. In that menu, you can select the mapping mode you want to use for your part so how the texture gets projected, and scale and rotate the pattern to your needs.

If you edit your slicing template, there is also a new section for textures to further adjust settings like the embossing depth. IdeaMaker is not super straightforward to use at first, but if you play around with it a little, it’s super powerful and basically an improved copy of Simplify3D, just free of charge to use. So really worth checking out if you want to try something new. And just for clarification; texturing does not only work on vase-modes prints but can be applied to all other normal prints as well!

So not every texture will give you the same benefit in strength and stiffness. Depending on the type and orientation of your pattern it can add but also decrease stiffness! There is a whole science behind bead patterns, even with software tools that can help you find the perfect pattern for your application. I also found a great guide on bead patterns for lightweight design online that you should check out, well, if you know German. I also linked the google translated page below if you’re interested and brave.

Using the texturing tool, let’s quickly tackle two things and find suitable patterns for these applications. First, the rounded cube that severely warps if not just printed in PLA. Here as an example, I used PETG because I knew that without any texture it severely deform during printing. The hex pattern already improves the results dramatically though you can still spot the slightly dented sides. The horizontal line pattern that you might also know from your tin cans adds quite a bit of stiffness to the part, but you can still see that the sides are slightly bowed. Interestingly and this isn’t intuitive at first, the part that turned out the best had a vertical line pattern added. These decrease the axial stiffness, like an accordion, in the direction the thermal stresses act and reduce the amount that can build up. The other axis is severely reinforced that way and therefore reduces warping, which is pretty neat. The other two patterns that I tested are a waffle pattern, and a 45° rotated waffle pattern. Both also reduce the warping of the part to a minimum. It is really cool to see that using this simple feature creates an individualized look and helps you make these thin-walled parts even printable in the first place. So go and print new planters!

Let’s now take a look at an example where not printability is of concern but the stiffness of the final part. If you print a cylinder smooth, it’s really compliant. Adding a nice-looking hex pattern on the outside reinforces it already a bit, but if you add the optimal horizontal pattern, it becomes just so much stiffer! You might not always find the perfect pattern right away, but the ease of use of the texturing module helps you try out your ideas very quickly.

Even though not perfect, the first texturing implementation in IdeaMaker is already a really helpful tool for artists and makers. Since slicers, in general, already have become so good with very comparable print results, it’s nice to see some innovation in that field. I hope others will implement similar or even better features in the future as well!

links

Download IdeaMaker: https://www.ideamaker.io/download.html
Bead pattern design for lightweight structures: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.4ming.de%2Findex.php%2Fleichtbau-durch-sicken-fachbuch%3Fstart%3D5
Texturing Guide: https://www.raise3d.com/academy/how-to-apply-texture-in-ideamaker/