BrailleCard

Inspiration

Most photos and greeting cards are made for sighted people. I wanted to make tactile cards for blind and low vision friends and family. As a side, it's a great way to create objects for sighted people to learn Braille and even make games (eg guessing games using just your hands and touch).

What it does

BrailleCard makes personalized Braille photo cards.

A user can:

1. Add a photograph.
2. Enter a personal message.
3. Generate and preview the Braille.
4. Save the design as an editable SVG file.
5. Generate printer-specific G-code.
6. Upload the G-code directly to a compatible 3D printer.
7. Monitor the print through Klipper, Mainsail, and the printer camera.

The project connects the full workflow—from personal photo and message to a finished physical card.

How we built it

I pretty much used any free tokens I had. Local, ChatGPT, Codex, Claude, Claude Code, Hermes. You name it. Even Open Code. My Sovol SV07 runs Linux inside so once I had the LAN hookup, everything flowed.

Challenges we ran into

Braille isn't like regular text. Interestingly AI couldn't generate the text in images without me reviewing it. There were also printer challenges - running a 3d printer COMPLETELY from AI was scary - the temperature, filament clogs, calibration mess-ups were all things I had tackled manually in the past. Could AI run the entire thing?

Accomplishments that we're proud of

BrailleCard is really a proof of concept for me. It can take any image, and using AI, render it completely in SVG and G-code and control and monitor the machine via CAM support from the printer. The system predicted the completion time to within a minute. It also pretty much can make any 3d printer remotely accessible.

What we learned

3D printing for the home hobbyist can be completely automated. And it can make things faster, personalized, and use all the tools intrinsic to printing that is pure grunt work. It was more about augmentation than automation, but I got both.

What's next for BrailleCard

Braille validation. Are the dots big enough? Texture? Detail? Legibility? More card options, more printers and filament configurations. Easier remote control.

Built With

• 3d-printing
• braille-translation
• chatgpt
• claude-code
• codex
• free-ai-models
• g-code
• gpt-5.6
• hermes
• image
• klipper
• local-language-models
• mainsail
• svg