Mobius Solids in OpenScad

I'd like to be able to create mobius solids on my printer. Solids are just mobius strips that have some thickness. it'd be nice to have the option to tell it how many folds it has.

probably a pretty tricky script. i don't even know where to begin :-(

Take a look at the scad file here for an idea of where to start:
[www.thingiverse.com]
You'll want to use a couple nested for loops with rotations to get the desired effect.

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Möbius strips aren't allowed in the STL file format ...

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Traumflug Wrote:
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> Möbius strips aren't allowed in the STL file
> format ...

Can't a solid mobius strip be designed with just one outer surface? In OpenSCAD it wouldn't be a true mobius strip since you would have to rotate boxes to form the strip, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

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really? I thought an stl was just a bunch of layered images, in effect, like a cat scan.

I guess a mobius strip is technically/mathematically a 2d structure, but in actuality a printed one would have height.

NewPerfection Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Take a look at the scad file here for an idea of
> where to start:
> [www.thingiverse.com]
> You'll want to use a couple nested for loops with
> rotations to get the desired effect.

yeah that's what got me thinking about it. i'd like to get a shape like the one on page 7 of the attached PDF.

An .stl file represents a solid as a mesh of flat triangular faces. Layered images would be some kind of voxel format. Since the .stl is composed of triangles, there is no "single outer surface" for a Möbius strip, and no single boundary edge. As with everything else, the .stl can hold only a faceted approximation Möbius strip. It's no less able to do this than represent a sphere.

ah ok. just read up on .stls.

It's the normal vector if each that's the issue. I don't think it's an issue with a mobius solid, since there will be an 'inside' and 'outside'

Yes they are...the web is full of examples. STL and even openscad.
A few examples are listed below.

Ian Mott

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11195/#files
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:184756/#files
http://www.yeggi.com/q/mobius/?s=tt