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Posted by chris_overseas 11/9/2025

Marble Fountain(willmorrison.net)
895 points | 92 commentspage 2
worldmerge 11/10/2025|
Will this is incredible! I’ve been learning openscad and making 3d models with it using python and this is such an inspiration. Check out the latest nightly version of openscad it’s significantly faster, like seconds vs multiple minutes on my exports.
CasperH2O 11/9/2025||
This is really quite interesting and similar to a project I'm working on. I've been using procedural generation to generate a marble dexterity track similar to a Perplexus. My tools are mainly Python, the Build123D library and a 3D printer.
wxce 11/9/2025||
Beautiful, I wonder what kind of craziness would be possible with this, at scale. Whole buildings being printed and assembled block by block. Real life Minecraft, if you will
temp0826 11/9/2025||
Are procedurally generated rollercoasters a thing?
sergiotapia 11/9/2025|||
Blame! is a manga where in the future humans have robots that build, and are controlled by people with Net Terminal Genes. Something happens and those humans die leaving the robots building non-stop procedurally for eons. By the time our protagonist moves about in the world, its said the Megastructure reaches from Earth all the way to Jupiter.

Also, the movie Fracture features these cool marble machines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-v6E9H6nh0

Back when movies were made with unique good scripts and not marvel slop.

stavros 11/10/2025||
Where did they get the material for it?
sergiotapia 11/10/2025||
They never really specify beyond the planets themselves being consumed wholesale. Some of the structures are just hollow spheres: https://preview.redd.it/7tvkbj5bp2hb1.jpg?width=1951&format=...

Also conceivable that meteors etc crash into the megastructure providing it with endless resources.

9dev 11/9/2025||
There are serious efforts and working prototypes of printing houses. This works surprisingly well, allows construction in days instead of months, and shows a lot of promise. It’s a great rabbit hole to fall into!
IshKebab 11/9/2025||
Does it though? I have yet to see a 3D printed house that would be cheaper than SIP panels.
frenchie4111 11/10/2025||
This is awesome! I'd love to print one for my office. Any chance there is an stl around I can print without having to get the script running?
ashepp 11/9/2025||
Stl?
ch_fr 11/10/2025||
Awesome project, I love to read about all kinds of different procedural generation approaches!
xnx 11/9/2025||
Stupendous project and video as well! The music is very complementary.
neomantra 11/9/2025||
Amazing on so many levels!! Thank you also for including the source.
dbacar 11/9/2025||
"ramble about marbles"

nice one!

scubbo 11/9/2025|
A pun? I don't get it, could you explain?
jwiz 11/9/2025|||
Anagram, perhaps.
dbacar 11/9/2025|||
I meant same letters, ramble -> marble
scubbo 11/10/2025||
Ah, nice, thanks!
randyrand 11/9/2025|
I wonder if you could get it to run silently, or close to it.
hinkley 11/9/2025|
That guy who makes marble music recently worked out a ball funnel that uses inserts in a different material to eat most of the noise. But in that case it’s also eating momentum as well so I’m not sure how that would work for this design. Maybe some bushings in the supports to reduce harmonics.
bigiain 11/9/2025||
Now my brain is doing it's usual "over complicate things to the extent a project cannot possibly get started" thing"...

Active noise cancelling. Vibration detectors on oscillating parts of the track with LRAs or similar actively driving opposing vibrations. Might be able to use whatever the cheap active noise cancelling electronics headphones have? Might be able to use a high speed camera and video motion amplification to work out the best places to deploy it?

hinkley 11/9/2025||
How you mount things matters a lot, and adjusting shapes to prevent harmonics might be something this guy could add to his algorithm.

I saved a couple friends in college from getting into fights with their downstairs neighbors by finding them milk crates to set their speakers on so the bass doesn’t all end up in the floor. Isolating from the base or making the base of TPU could likely help.

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