A (hopefully portable) way to create simple shapes, embossed with images, inspired by phooky's lampshade.py of old. With config file tweaks, this should work on a wide variety of 3D printers. Send me your config and I'll update the repository.

Code is also hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/michthom/emboss.py

Download the zip file and expand the files (Unix and Windows line ending variants are included depending on your preferred platform, but otherwise both sets are functionally identical).

Make sure you have Python 2.7.x, and a copy of the Python Imaging Library (http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/) correctly installed.

Run the emboss.py script with the --help flag, and then look at the test_suite.sh script to see how the script is invoked.

If you can, run the test_suite.sh script and it will generate a few samples of geode (targeted for a BfB3000, so don't actually print if you have a different machine!)

Create a prefix and suffix file with the Gcode appropriate to your machine's initialisation / completion code. Create a config file with the parameters appropriate to your machine, material and preferences.

Find a suitable image, and have a go printing embossed cylinders, cones and truncated globes.

Don't forget to let me know if you find problems, or if you have config files to submit for your machine type.

==== Troubleshooting (thanks phooky!) ====

Q: It says something about "Cannot find module Image", what should I do? A: You probably don't have PIL (Python Image Library). You can install this from a terminal. With Ubuntu you can apt-get python-pil. On Linux and the Mac you can compile this yourself.

$ wget http://effbot.org/media/downloads/Imaging-1.1.7.tar.gz

...or look for a newer version here: http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/

$ tar xzf Imaging-1.1.7.tar.gz $ cd Imaging-1.1.7 $ python setup.py build $ sudo python setup.py install