3D Printed Records

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Exploring the limits of 3D printing technology by printing a vinyl record.

Amanda Ghassaei is a developer at Instructables in San Francisco. In 2012, she started her project, she said on her website and I quote :

In order to explore the current limits of 3D printing technology, I’ve created a technique for converting digital audio files into 3D-printable.

To make it possible, she wrote a program capable of automatically modelling the raw audio data and to generate them into the geometry of a 12″ record. And eventually exporting this geometry into a 3D printable file format. The audio quality is quite dodgy but it’s easily recognizable.

She explains us that she has been able to reproduce with her program, the groove depth of a vinyl record. The technique is to define the height of the bottom of a spiral groove and make sure that the 3D printer will exactly reproduce that same height. When a turntable stylus will move along the groove, it will recreate the original audio signal.

This video below shows us the process of printing a vinyl record in 3D.

More details about the technique on Amanda’s website.

Source : Amanda Ghassaei