Letterpress / Moveable Type / Typesetting

thingiverse

Introducing a novel letterpress prototype! Design your message using tiles, apply ink, and press onto paper for an instant print. The font used is OCR-A, designed to be easily read by both humans and machines. To create personalized characters, utilize the provided OpenOffice/LibreOffice .ODS file. For more details, check out my blog at http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/04/3d-printed-letter-press/. To manufacture your letterpress masterpiece, follow these steps: 1. Open the spreadsheet attached (.ods file). 2. Each square has a thick black border representing spaces between tiles. 3. The background is grey; the darker the shade, the thinner the height of the tile. 4. Font color is white; the lighter hue indicates a taller letter from the tile. 5. Export your design as PNG. 6. Use a graphics editor like GIMP to trim excess and ensure a black background. 7. Flip the file horizontally for accurate 3D printing. 8. Lastly, employ png23d to convert PNG into STL format: "png23d -v -f surface -t 0 -l 32 -w 100 -d 5 -O 1 -o stl Letter.png Letters.stl". Happy creating!