Believe it or not, but drainspotting is a thing in Japan, and for good reason !
Photo by John Daub from ONLY in Japan.
As you'd expect from Japan though, collectible cards are published by the official Sewer Public Relations Platform regularly and handed in person by each municipalities' services.
In this series, I'm taking inspiration from the beautiful manhole cover designs I come across on my daily journeys or vacations. The June 2022 Flash Contest was a perfect occasion to fuel my passion and turn my photos into printable 3D models to be used as drink coasters !
For the first models I chose to investigate different methods of reproduction. For the Fuji City model, I used a photograph and touched up every original color to give it a specific depth and texture that would be reproduced through a height map.
For this reason, this model should be printed as presented in the STL file (standing up, along the Y axis).
I'm pretty happy with the way the textures are rendered using a 0.15 layer height. It is however a long print.
For the second model, I decided to use OpenSCAD in order to have more control on the mechanical features and to achieve a greater detail definition as well as a shorter print time.
I use the Belfry OpenScad Library (BOSL) to model the objects, you'll have to install it in order to load my scad
file.
The logotype at the center is modifiable. You can specify the text, the font, the size and the position.
The syntax to specify the font must follow OpenSCAD's rules.
The frame is a simple design of my own creation. Its main purpose is to enhance the liquid protection when the manhole serves as a drink coaster.
I am currently in the process of manually vectorizing the original Tokyo 23 manhole cover. I chose this one for the next iteration of my production process because it is of historical importance and features a simple and iconic design.
The author marked this model as their own original creation.