Not that it’s the kind of thing that pops into your head often, but if you ever do think of a cyanotype print, it probably doesn’t conjure up thoughts of modern technology. For good reason — the monochromatic technique was introduced in the 1840s, and was always something of a niche technology compared to more traditional photographic methods.
The original method is simple enough: put an object or negative between the sun and a UV-sensitive medium, and the exposed areas will turn blue and produce a print. This modernized concept created by [Gabe] works the same way, except both the sun and the negative have been replaced by a lightly modified resin 3D printer.
A good chunk of the effort here is in the software, as [Gabe] had to write some code that would take an image and turn it into something the printer would understand. His proof of concept was a clever bit of Python code that produced an OpenSCAD script, which ultimately converted each grayscale picture to a rectangular “pixel” of variable height. The resulting STL files could be run through the slicer to produce the necessary files to load into the printer. This was eventually replaced with a new Python script capable of converting images to native printer files through UVtools.
On the hardware side, all [Gabe] had to do was remove the vat that would usually hold the resin, and replace that with a wooden lid to both hold the UV-sensitized paper in place and protect the user’s eyes. [Gabe] says there’s still some roo ..
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