This is a first-pass at implementing a silly notion.
MID2CNC is a great little project for turning MIDI audio files into machine instructions for playback on CNC machines, including MakerBots.
After thinking about this for some time, it dawned on me that this process should be able to be reversed - given some G-Code for the machine, we can simulate the sound that would be produced by the stepper motors.
This is a Processing sketch that actually does it.
Thanks to cibomahto for the GCode class from his
GCodeDrawer.
Run the sketch. It will read the data/penny-opener-cut.gcode file, which is
just a random file I had handy on my machine. You should hear triphonic
goodness as it simulates building a raft and then a bottle opener. A .wav
file will be saved as g-code.wav.
Feel free to change the sketch to use your own files!
I knocked this out in a couple of hours so there is a long wish list already:
- Use sampled motor noise and pitch-shift it rather than using triangle waves.
- Add filters to make each axis more true to the MakerBot's resonances.
- Add extruder noise when the extruder is on.
- Add optional periodic click-clack of heater relays.
- Add automated build platform motor noise.
- Honor
G92"you are here" codes for resetting position. - The timing model is lame and occasionally locks up for a moment. Should probably be queuing up moves in a better way.
- X/Y/Z component feedrate calculation may be off, some weird high-pitched sounds are produced unexpectedly that don't match what the bot would do.
- High-speed "dump-to-wav" would be nice so you don't have to listen in real time. :)
- Simulate motor noise motion in space with parallax :D