Save R data to an STL file

r2stl takes numeric input exactly as with the persp function. The output is a STL (stereolithography) file.

r2stl(
  x,
  y,
  z,
  filename = "3d-R-object.stl",
  object.name = "r2stl-object",
  z.expand = FALSE,
  min.height = 0.008,
  show.persp = FALSE,
  strict.stl = FALSE
)

Arguments

x

A numeric vector with the x-coordinates to plot.

y

A numeric vector with the y-coordinates to plot.

z

A numeric length(x) by length(y) matrix with the z-coordinates to plot.

filename

The STL filename.

object.name

The object that is being described must have a name specified inside the file. There's probably no point changing it from the default.

z.expand

To force the 3D plot to touch all six faces of the imaginary cube that surrounds it, set this argument to TRUE.

min.height

The minimum height for the printed material.

show.persp

If set to TRUE then a persp plot of this object is shown on the screen.

strict.stl

If set to TRUE it makes files smaller but isn't strictly proper STL format.

Value

The object returned when close is used to close the connection to filename.

Details

To view and test the STL files before printing them can be done with many programs, for example an open-source option is Meshlab https://www.meshlab.net/.

Author

Ian Walker.

Examples

# Let's do the classic persp() demo plot
x <- seq(-10, 10, length = 100)
y <- x
f <- function(x,y) {
  r <- sqrt(x^2+y^2)
  return(10 * sin(r) / r)
}
z <- outer(x, y, f)
z[is.na(z)] <- 1
file1 <- tempfile(fileext = ".stl")
r2stl(x, y, z, filename = file1, show.persp = TRUE)


# Now let's look at R's Volcano data
z <- volcano
x <- 1:dim(volcano)[1]
y <- 1:dim(volcano)[2]
file2 <- tempfile(fileext = ".stl")
r2stl(x, y, z, filename = file2, show.persp = TRUE)