deepPan

3D printable tenor steel pan with section generator, note pads, and interactive sound design tools.

Live site: proflewis.github.io/deepPan

Project Overview

This project creates a 3D printable tenor steel pan from a 3D scanned model. The pan is split into printable sections with individually mountable note pads, enabling replacement of damaged notes, experimentation with materials and tuning, and educational exploration of steel pan acoustics.

Tenor Pan Layout

The tenor pan has 29 note pads in three concentric rings:

Ring	Notes	Interval	Octave
Outer	12	4ths	4
Central	12	5ths	5
Inner	5	6ths	6

Section Generator

The pan’s outer ring is split into 6 printable sections of 60° each, designed to fit a Bambu Lab P1S printer (256 x 256 x 256 mm). Each section contains 2 outer-ring notes and assembles together to reconstruct the full pan shell.

Section	Angle	Notes
S0	15° – 75°	O2, O1
S1	75° – 135°	O0, O11
S2	135° – 195°	O10, O9
S3	195° – 255°	O8, O7
S4	255° – 315°	O6, O5
S5	315° – 15°	O4, O3

Each section includes:

• Notepad pockets — Sunken recesses (1.5mm deep) matching each note’s shape, with M4 boss through-holes for mounting
• Profile-following support walls — Radial walls along each cut edge whose top profile follows the drum surface, with M4 bolt holes and finger joints for alignment
• Inner arc support — Curved wall at R=145mm with studs and cable routing hole
• Drum wall — Original scanned drum geometry preserved without subdivision

# Generate all 6 sections
python generate_quarter.py --all

# Generate a single section
python generate_quarter.py S0

# View in Blender
blender --python view_all_sections.py

Note Pads

Each of the 29 note pads is extracted from the 3D scan and converted into a printable solid with integrated mounting hardware:

1. Note Pad — Thickened to 1.5mm with a threaded mounting cylinder and 4 corner bosses
2. Mount Base — Screws onto the note pad, includes PCB mounting bosses (M2 holes) for electronics
3. Outer Sleeve — Protective housing with 12 grip ridges and cable routing

All threads use a push-fit ring groove design (2mm pitch, 1mm depth, 0.3mm clearance) optimized for FDM printing.

# Generate all 29 note pads
python generate_notepad.py --all

# Generate a specific note pad
python generate_notepad.py O5

# Generate mount hardware
python generate_mount_base.py
python generate_outer_sleeve.py

3D Printing Notes

• All meshes are watertight and manifold
• Recommended layer height: 0.2mm
• Recommended infill: 20–30%
• Support may be needed for note pad overhangs
• Thread clearance designed for FDM printers (0.3mm)

Sound Design

The synthesizer generates realistic steel pan tones using additive synthesis with 14 adjustable parameters:

Group	Parameters
Envelope	Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release
Harmonics	Fundamental, 2nd/3rd/4th Harmonic, Sub Bass
Character	Detune, Filter Cutoff, Brightness
Output	Duration, Volume

Five built-in presets: Default, Bright, Mellow, Bell, and Pluck.

Interactive Tools

• Pan Player — Click notes to hear them, sequence playback, 4 visualization modes
• Sound Designer — Real-time synthesis with 14 parameter sliders and 5 presets
• Google Colab — Run the synthesizer in the cloud with no installation

Command-Line Tools

# Generate all sound samples
python generate_sounds.py

# Use a preset
python generate_sounds.py --preset bright

# Play a melody
./deepPanPlay "C4 E4 G4 C5"

# Analyze a WAV file to extract parameters
python analyze_audio.py sample.wav --output params.json

Pipeline Summary

Step	Script	Output
Extract pan surface	extract_pan_surface.py	Centered bowl mesh
Generate note pads	generate_notepad.py --all	29 note pad OBJ/STL + properties
Generate sections	generate_quarter.py --all	6 section OBJ/STL + properties
Generate mount hardware	generate_mount_base.py	Mount base STL/OBJ
Generate sounds	generate_sounds.py	29 WAV files

File Structure

deepPan/
├── data/
│   ├── Tenor Pan only.obj       # Source 3D model
│   ├── notepads/                # Note pad STL/OBJ + properties
│   ├── quarters/                # Section STL/OBJ + properties
│   └── mounts/                  # Mount hardware STL/OBJ
├── sounds/                      # Synthesized audio samples
├── docs/                        # Documentation images
├── extract_pan_surface.py       # Pan surface extraction
├── generate_notepad.py          # Note pad generator
├── generate_quarter.py          # Section generator (sixths)
├── generate_mount_base.py       # Mount base generator
├── generate_outer_sleeve.py     # Outer sleeve generator
├── generate_sounds.py           # Sound synthesis CLI
├── analyze_audio.py             # Audio analysis tool
├── player.html                  # Interactive pan player
├── synth.html                   # Sound design tool (browser)
├── synth_pygame.py              # Sound design tool (native Python)
├── deepPan_Colab.ipynb          # Google Colab notebook
├── deepPanPlay                  # Command-line melody player
├── view_all_sections.py         # Blender: all 6 sections
├── view_quarter.py              # Blender: single section + notepads
├── view_oriented_pan.py         # Blender: oriented pan surface
└── view_all.py                  # Blender: pan + mounts

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• numpy
• scipy (for audio)

License

This project is for educational and personal use.