Comment by lmpdev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmpdev | Hacker News Reader

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Tangental:

Most consumer printers I’ve come across have differing XY and Z axis spatial resolutions

I’ve been wanting a decent algorithm to determine the optimal angle to print models such that the result is aesthetically as high fidelity as possible

Take for example a rigid model crane set to a non orthogonal angle. Is it pleasing to print with respect to one vertical column or the other? What if they are not equally sized? What about which is most likely to be viewed up close?

Generalising that problem to more organic shapes is incomprehensible but I can’t even answer the aforementioned toy example

I’m sure there are dozens of excellent potential approaches but I can’t easily find it for arbitrary XY and Z (or other combinations thereof) spatial resolutions

If you need detail in more than one axis, you should use a smaller nozzle and lower speed. Along z-axis, the feature size limit is layer height, and along XY it's linewidth. Layer height can be very small with any nozzle (I've seen as small as 50 microns), but linewidth will typically need a smaller nozzle hole to work well, particularly to get below 100 microns.

I think XY actually has better resolution depending on your perspective. I agree that the minimum extrusion is approximately a line width circle. But that circle can move less than the line width for features on larger surfaces. For example, if you emboss something on the side of an object with 0.3mm depth using a 0.4mm nozzle / line-width, it will work fine.

Yeah, I suppose it depends heavily on the kind of detail. I was mostly thinking along the lines of printing lithophanes or hueforge prints.

With lithophones it's typically recommended to print upright so the image is formed by stacking layers, as that allows for "pixels" to be thinner. Hueforge instead is typically printed flat because color stacking/blending needs more resolution than the shapes.

My cheeky observation to that would be: if you need detail in any axis use a resin printer. ;)

Yeah, if you're doing detailed prints often, especially decorative stuff, resin can't be beat by standard fdm.

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