NON-TOXIC ENGRAVING PLATES DEVELOPED WITH OPEN SOURCE 3D PRINTERS AND SOFTWARE

In the engraving, art education has always been complex mainly due to problems arising from creation of engraving plates. These problems are attributable to the need using toxic chemicals during the process of creating engraved plates, the large space required for teaching along with the danger of materials have to be taken in consideration in a classroom full of students.

As a result, the practice of engraving in the educational field has been reduced to art schools and some faculties of Fine Arts, therefore this presence in other educational stages is practically absent.

This study presents as solution a new technique based on 3D printing to development of engraving plates without the use of toxic products, furthermore, the characteristics of this technique allow us to teach to our students ICT.

This technique has been developed using only Open source software hardware due to financial advantages and accessibility terms, although the methodological basis of this system could be used without problems in commercial software and hardware solution too.