Comment by pbronez

9 days ago

It's cool that you support plotters. I don't have a plotter, but I DO have a 3D printer, and those can also do some pretty cool 2D visualizations.

There's a good ecosystem for Lithophanes [0][1] and maps [2][3]. This would be a cool addition to that.

[0] https://all3dp.com/2/how-to-3d-print-your-own-lithophane/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU13fzqAu4BTAhOSHJgHRqg

[2] https://blog.prusa3d.com/how-to-print-maps-terrains-and-land...

[3] https://map2stl.com/

Oh nice, I didn't know one could print Lithophanes. If you mount a pen in your 3D Printer and the right settings it should also work as a pen plotter. But I don't know how practical that is.

The map2stl tool is also cool. I created a similar tool [0] for pen plotters using OpenStreetMap Data a while ago, which is fun to play around with.

[0] https://piebro.github.io/plotting-maps

  • Plenty of people have taped a pen to their 3D printer. The main problem is the same issue for all plotters: they just aren't actually that useful. They're neat as hell for sure, they just don't solve a problem that most people have.