Zigzag

Good for

Vases, bins and anything that wants to look lively.

Print notes

• Depth 0.4 to 1.5 mm for a 0.4 mm nozzle (as written: 1.0 mm).
• Best on walls, printed upright. On a flat top, use thin layers (0.12 mm or less).
• Fade it out over the bottom 3 mm so the first layers are flat and stick to the plate.
• Not printed yet: these notes come from the geometry. The test cube will tell us more.

The formula

The real code this page runs: give it a point (U mm across, V mm up) and it returns the height there, in mm. Push the surface out by that much and the texture is real geometry.

function zigzag(U: number, V: number, p = 7.0, amp = 1.0) {
  const s = frac((V + 3.5 * tri(U / 7)) / p) - 0.5;
  return amp * dome((s / 0.3) ** 2);
}

/** The fractional part, 0..1. */
function frac(x: number) {
  return x - Math.floor(x);
}

/** A triangle wave: 0..1..0. */
function tri(x: number) {
  return 1 - 2 * Math.abs(frac(x) - 0.5);
}

/** A round bump: 1 in the middle (r2 = 0), 0 at the edge (r2 = 1). */
function dome(r2: number) {
  return Math.sqrt(clamp(1 - r2, 0, 1));
}

function clamp(x: number, lo: number, hi: number) {
  return Math.min(Math.max(x, lo), hi);
}

Printed