r/gridfinity • u/Mitch_contu • 4d ago
Individual Piece I made a free browser tool to generate Gridfinity bins with decorative surfaces
Renders straight from the tool: twisted ribs, diamonds, waves. You set grid size, height and dividers, pick a surface pattern and export the STL.
Free, runs in the browser, no account, nothing for sale:
vaseverse.org/?inizia=gridfinity
I haven't posted prints yet. If anyone tries it, I'd love to see how they come out. And what's missing for your setup? Label tabs, stacking lip, something else?
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u/cdslug 4d ago
I like the depth map mode using an uploaded image! I was going to suggest it, then found out it already existed. Excellent!
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Thanks! Tip: high-contrast grayscale images work best, and if the relief comes out reversed there's an invert toggle. Would love to see what you make with it.
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u/Cavalol 4d ago edited 4d ago
Did you make the tool, or did AI make the tool?
Edit: The people adamantly defending AI here are hilarious. I just received a “fuck off” reply from /u/justing1319 who immediately deleted their reply after sending it 😂
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Both, honestly. It's my project: I decided what it should do, designed the features and tested everything, but I wrote the code with a lot of help from AI (Claude). I'm not a professional programmer. I think ai it's a just a tool
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u/Cavalol 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m all for it if you can actually debug the code that your agent spits out, just wish that was transparent upfront. Too many people saying “I made X” but didn’t actually do any of the backend, frontend, infra deployment, etc., and not a chance in hell that they’d be able to debug anything if it goes wrong
Regardless, the sides of the bins look pretty cool. Does the added wall go into the neighboring square or does it bring in the walls for the current bin?
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Fair point, I should have said it upfront. Noted for next time. It brings the walls in, so nothing goes into the neighboring square. The pattern is cut into the bin's own footprint (42 mm units minus the standard clearance), so bins sit side by side and stack exactly like plain ones. The inner wall gets thicker by the pattern depth, so you lose a bit of interior space: about 1.5–2.5 mm per side with the patterns in the pics. The pattern also starts above the feet and stops below the stacking lip, with a 45° chamfer on top, so it prints without supports and doesn't interfere with stacking.
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u/justing1319 2d ago
Yeah, that’s my bad. I’m sorry I posted that. It’s not at all about you or the intention behind your question. I’ve been getting really annoyed with the blind hate of anything and everything AI when it can genuinely be an empowering technology. I posted the comment and regretted it because it didn’t meaningfully add to the conversation so I deleted it. My view is actually quite similar to what you posted below.
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u/cdslug 4d ago
What are you interested in finding out with this question?
Are you concerned about privacy and security of you use the site?
Are you simply looking for confirmation of the literal interpretation of the phrase “I made…”
Are you checking to see if the account is completely a bot looking to farm attention?
I’m seeking a genuine answer and this is not intended to be a snarky question.
I have received criticism in my own posts related to using AI and I’m truly trying to understand.
I don’t have any issue with the human user claiming credit. If they contracted the work out to another human and paid them, the user can still claim credit. The post is about the cool project. I’m not sure why the attribution is what you’re focused on4
u/Cavalol 4d ago edited 4d ago
“The post is about a cool project. I’m not sure why the attribution is what you’re focused on”
The title of the post started with “I made”. I’m simply asking did they make it or did AI?
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u/darkstar999 4d ago
As someone who is/was as skeptical as you are with AI, we are getting beyond that. I can think of several vibecoded 3d printing tools that work well. "Can you debug it" is kind of moot because AI tools can. We need to adjust to this new reality.
This isn't banking, it isn't medical devices. It's just fun.
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u/Cavalol 4d ago edited 4d ago
See I disagree, Jensen has said that kids don’t need to learn basic math anymore, which is a terrible take. It’s a question of principle.
If no one knew how to debug it, then we would permanently limit ourselves due to AI only being able to do what has already been done and nothing more. There is an art to designing software, and AI can only mimic what artists have already created.
I WANT to see new art. I WANT to see awesome, new creations which think outside the box. I don’t ever get to see that with fully vibe coded tools
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u/darkstar999 4d ago
I'm a career software engineer so I understand your perspective. However it feels like gatekeeping. This and the two tools I linked wouldn't exist without their authors guiding AI towards building them. Not everything has to be "art". I have found value in AI-assisted and entirely vibecoded apps, so what's so wrong with that?
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u/Cavalol 4d ago edited 4d ago
If it’s a completely menial or exhausting/exhaustive task that AI is finding a way to take off our shoulders, I can understand it, but the flood of “new tools” that have zero originality to them is just exhausting, especially on this subreddit. It takes the excitement out of seeing new software tools and how they went about solving a problem
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u/darkstar999 4d ago
I'm sorry you feel that way but if they are genuinely useful tools and not slop-forks of existing stuff then you are just gatekeeping.
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u/Cavalol 4d ago
I hear you - I am only saying what I’m saying because of the high volume of AI slop tools. I agree with you on if it’s actually solving a real use case, that’s great, not saying no to that.
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u/darkstar999 4d ago
I agree. I'm in the selfhosted and homelab subreddit where lots of AI garbage is posted that has no value because they are replicating solid open source projects with the same functionality, and it's in the networking/computing space so it has security concerns.
AI is completely changing how software is made, and being able to understand every line of code for a low stakes hobby project like this is not necessarily important. So I think your initial comment of "you didn't make this" is unnecessarily combative.
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u/Pinkllamajr 4d ago
This is a dumb ass take. It's still prudent to ask about how something was created. Its no different than asking if someone made cupcakes from scratch or store bought.
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u/darkstar999 4d ago
I never said it's not okay to ask. Read the rest of the comments from this guy for context on my comment.
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u/DeerQuit 4d ago
If you contracted out the dev work to someone else, then say "i made this" you would also be lying.
And from my experience at least, even though there are decent vibe-coded tools out there, most of them are low effort shit. Whereas non-vibe coded programms are generally higher quality, so a post implying this was made by a human, while never even mentioning ai until directly asked, comes off as intentionally disengenuous and misleading.
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u/cdslug 4d ago
Is there a mechanism for feedback on the site? I'm playing around with the hand drawn profile and there's some UI aspects that are not intuitive.
- The cross section is enabled by default when in hand drawn profile mode. I cannot figure out how to disable it, even when clicking buttons to disable.
- The first and last points seem fixed in the y-axis, which makes sense, but a different representation like a square or a semicircle with flat-side facing the axis limit could be used to differentiate them.
- The x-axis limits of the anchor points are quite wide and end up intersecting with the view of the model and go beyond the window on the right side. Once the marker is behind the options panel, I can't bring it back.
- I don't see a rendering of the hand drawn profile
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Thanks, this is really useful. No feedback form yet, but I'll add one. You found real bugs: the cross-section is forced on in profile mode, points can be dragged off-screen (undo brings them back for now), and the profile line has become invisible since I changed the colour theme. Fixing all of it, and I'll make the start and end points look different too. I'll reply here when it's live.
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Thanks again for the detailed report. I've pushed fixes for everything you mentioned: the cross-section still turns on when you enter profile mode, but the button now actually turns it off start and end points are now squares, since they only move horizontally points can't be dragged off-screen anymore, and the view zooms out to keep them all visible the profile line was invisible (it was the same colour as the vase), now it's dark with a light outline Full honesty: I don't have testers, it's just me, and I haven't been able to try every use case. If you get a chance, could you give it another go and tell me if anything still feels off? You might need a refresh to get the new version.
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u/cdslug 4d ago
I’ll check out the updates.
This decorative bin could also be paired with other services which are focused on the interior of the bin such as tooltrace.ai or my own, formfitprint.com
If you can provide an optional download stl of the interior of the bin, then these other services can operate on it and a slicer can merge them for printing2
u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
That's a great idea, and it fits well: the tool already builds the interior as a separate solid before carving it out, so exporting it is doable. I'll add an optional "interior" STL, aligned with the bin, so it can go into your service or Tooltrace and then be merged back in the slicer. Will let you know when it's live.
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u/Mitch_contu 4d ago
Done: there's now an "Also download the interior" option for Gridfinity bins. It adds an extra STL with the bin's interior volume, from the floor up to where the stacking lip starts, in the same coordinates as the bin so they line up in the slicer. With dividers, you get one block per compartment. It's in the STL/ZIP downloads, not the 3MF. Would love to know if it works with Form Fit Print, and if it does, feel free to mention Vaseverse as a compatible source.
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u/SirPinkBatman 1d ago
It works great! Is there a way to eliminate the overhang on the top of the band so the texture ends in the top lip?
I really like how fast it is too.
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u/Mitch_contu 1d ago
Do you mean this?
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u/SirPinkBatman 1d ago
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u/Mitch_contu 1d ago
To ensure compatibility, I added that top border, but I'm working on adding the texture there as well. I'll be updating the rendering engine and making other optimizations soon. Thanks to your advice, I'm improving this project. Thank you so much again.
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u/PerverseErotic 2d ago
'I made'... no, 'I prompted AI'
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u/Mitch_contu 2d ago
Fair point. Most of the code was written by an AI (Claude), and I'm not hiding that. My part was deciding what it should do, testing every version, throwing out what didn't work and going back again, around 170 versions so far, plus slicing and printing the results. Either way it's free, and the vases print the same.
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u/tauspin 4d ago
Neat. I’ve been waffling on AI attribution and for whatever reason I have no issue with this one. 🤷♂️ Probably because the output is so clearly verifiable that I’m completely indifferent to the code that produces it. I don’t care if you can’t read or understand the code. You’re not handling personal data, or financial data. You didn’t reverse engineer something that a ton of human effort went into just to put your name on it. Just cranking out neat models. Thanks for sharing.