simonhwk / DM-food-printing

A custom G-code generator script for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) based 3D food printing.

DM-food-printing

A custom G-code generator script for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) based 3D food printing.

Overview

This Python script offers a GUI to design patterns based on the epicycloid curve. Once a pattern is visualized, users can generate the corresponding G-code required for FDM 3D printing, particularly tailored for food printing.

Features

• GUI built using Tkinter
• Visualizes the epicycloid curve based on adjustable parameters for large and small circle radii, and the distance from the center
• Allows the user to save the visualized pattern as an image
• Generates custom G-code suitable for FDM based 3D food printers

How to Use

1. Run the script.
2. Adjust the sliders to modify the parameters of the epicycloid curve.
3. Visualize the pattern in real-time on the GUI.
4. Save the visualized pattern as an image if required.
5. Generate the G-code for the pattern and save it to your desired location.

Code Structure

The code consists of a primary EpicycloidGUI class that manages the GUI elements, plot generation, and G-code generation.

• The epicycloid function computes the (x, y) coordinates for the curve.
• Sliders allow real-time manipulation of the curve parameters.
• save_fig allows saving the figure.
• generate_gcode is responsible for creating the G-code based on the current curve.

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• tkinter
• numpy
• matplotlib