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In connection with a research project, we have a need to produce braille texts (sentences and paragraphs) in braille. Ordinarily, braille is produced with an embosser that punches raised dots into fairly heavy (60lb-ish) paper; however, there is a special twist in this case that makes use of these off-the-shelf solutions impractical: sizing.

A braille cell consists of two vertical columns of up to three dots each. We can assume that the ‘standard’ dimensions of a braille cell are:

  • Dot diameter at base [D]: 1.44mm
  • Dot height [H]: 0.48mm (rounded dome shape)
  • Horizontal and vertical dot spacing from center to center of dots within a cell [S]: 2.34mm
  • Character spacing (distance from center of top left dot in character N to center of top left dot in character N+1) [CS]: 6.2mm
  • Line to line spacing (distance from center of top left dot in line N to top left dot in aligned cell on the next line) [LS]: 10mm

This page includes a diagram showing this graphically: Redirecting…

What we would like to do, is to produce text in a variety of sizes, scaling these parameters accordingly. A table is attached showing some estimated production ranges.

1. Is producing this type of material via 3D printing practical, i.e. are these sizes within tolerances that can reasonably be achieved?

2. I have found various methods described for producing “3D braille”, but they all involve manually positioning letters of the alphabet onto working meshes one at a time. Is there someone out there with the skill set to do this programically instead, particularly given the range of sizes required? What’s the development cost likely to be of such a tool?

Some existing work that may be an inspiration for this:

Any information or pointers (even someone to hire!) would be appreciated.
braille_sizing_table.pdf (64.3 KB)

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This is a really cool project! We could create braille dots of this size on our Polyjet machine. We 3D printed a relief map of a famous painting for visually impaired visitors to a museum with 0.3mm steps between the levels. Anyone with an SLA machine should also be able to reach that accuracy/level detail.

It seems like it should be possible to create a program where as you type it puts the relevant braille character in order in some sort of 3D CAD file, which you can them save as stl to 3D print. Resizing the braille characters should be easy enough. But this is not my area of expertise, so I cannot offer to help.