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Blob Printing

A tubular structure made of overlapping extrusion blobs — the printer pauses at each blob position, extrudes stationary plastic for a fixed time, and moves on. The result is a textured wall built from hundreds of discrete, spherical blobs rather than a smooth extrusion line. Use it for chunky organic vases, grip surfaces, or artistic pieces where extrusion rheology becomes the aesthetic.

See Predefined Models for the general workflow and how to select this model.

Parameters (sliders)

Parameters

Tube Radius
Radius of the tube in mm (5–50). Blobs are placed around a circle of this radius.
Blob Size
Diameter of each individual blob (mm, 0.8–4). Larger blobs leave bigger lumps; smaller blobs give a finer bumpy texture.
Blob Overlap
How much adjacent blobs overlap laterally (0–80 %). Higher overlap produces a more continuous wall; low overlap gives visibly separated blobs.
Extrusion Speed
F value (mm/min) used while the nozzle is stationary and extruding a blob. Slower speeds give larger, messier blobs; faster speeds give cleaner beads. 100 mm/min is a good starting point.
Layers
Number of layers stacked on top of each other (2–30). The total height is roughly Layers × Blob Size × (1 − shrinkage factor).
Dense Layers (Top/Bottom)
How many of the first and last layers are printed with denser (non-blob) infill so the vase has closed top and bottom faces. 2 is a good starting value.
Quantity
Number of tubular structures generated side by side (1–5).

How it works

  1. Blob positions are computed around a circle of Tube Radius, spaced so the centre-to-centre distance equals (1 − Blob Overlap) × Blob Size.
  2. Each blob is a short stationary extrusion: the nozzle moves to the blob position, dwells, extrudes Blob Size worth of filament at Extrusion Speed, then moves to the next blob.
  3. Between layers the blob pattern is shifted by half a blob to create a staggered brick pattern that stays strong.
  4. Dense Layers (Top/Bottom) replaces the first and last N layers with normal continuous extrusion so the vase is actually closed.