Steps to create a jigsaw puzzle from custom image

Get image conversion tool

Tool for image conversion is at https://github.com/mixicz/printed-puzzle (follow instructions in README.md).

Prepare palette files 

You need to provide your filament colors for the image you want to print. Colors are in RGB format, sample palette is included in colors/ directory in repository. Tool will use all available colors in palette in specified order, so it is good idea to order them from lightest to darkest color.

Convert image to scad source

Typical use looks like:

convert -palette palette.txt -size 150 -layer-colors 5 image.jpg

It will create 2 files:

• preview.png – this is preview of resulting print (image converted to specified palette)
• out.scad – file with image converted to vectors for OpenSCAD

Create puzzle model using OpenSCAD

Copy out.scad to directory with puzzle.scad and if required, alter parameters in puzzle.scad according to your needs (follow comments in puzzle.scad).

If you use simple color print (single color per layer), you can just render and export resulting puzzle.

If you want to use MMU mode with multiple colors per layer, you need to add parameter with rendered color to piece_set(); command (or simply comment it out and uncomment commands below). You need to render and export each color individually in this case.

In case you want puzzle larger than would fit on your print bed, you can limit number of puzzle pieces using start and dim parameters or do it in slicer (depending on your slicer features).

Slice&Print

Nothing special required here, just match layer height with the one specified in puzzle.scad (parameter layerHeight, default is 0.2mm).

Sample Image

Sample image was converted and printed using following palette / filament colors:

#ffffff Fillamentum Traffic White
#f7b500 Fillamentum Traffic Yellow (RAL 1023)
#ed6b21 Fillamentum Orange Orange (RAL 2008)
#bb1e10 Fillamentum Traffic Red (RAL 3020)
#000000 Fillamentum Traffic Black

Size was set to 150mm with default 5×5 pieces puzzle size

Credits

Sample image is from from Pepper & Carrot by David Revoy, License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

TODO list

• give much more love to conversion tool (build pipeline to have ready to use binaries on github, better documentation, unit tests…),
• option to print only the image,
• box for puzzle pieces with printed image as lid