Rick's Chainmaker for POVRay

thingiverse

Rick's Chain Maker is a completely free tool for creating detailed maps of chain structures in 3D, perfect for POVRAY: http://www.povray.org/download/. With it, you can easily create any shape of chain frame you need at almost any resolution just by adjusting a few parameters. The depth maps generated are ideal for use with CNC machines like the Easter Egg Maker http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:719877, Carvewright and Sears Compucarve, as well as reduced polygon 3D surface modeling. Suppose you need to carve or model a 5" x 7" picture frame made from chain - no problem! Just load this code into POVRAY then render the image. Next, use the included OpenSCAD script to generate an .stl file from the image or use the image in your CNC program directly! Comcast discontinued its hosting services so http://home.comcast.net/~chainmaker/ is no longer accessible. I'll keep searching for a replacement site, but for now you can find all the files here. Note: For use with CarveWright software, render .png files by entering "Output_File_Type=N" next to the resolution pick list in the POVRAY command line or add it to your presets .ini file. Also, for best results, use anti-aliasing (AA 0.3) or better when rendering. Instructions: Unzip RicksChainMaker.zip to a folder on your hard disk. The zip includes ChainMaker.inc, ChainMakerDefaults.inc, and many example POVRAY files. Load any of the examples into POVRAY, adjust the parameters to suit your needs, then render.