EcoOcean Glass: a 3D-printed stained-glass panel

EcoOcean Glass is a 3D-printed light-filtering panel designed for a museum exhibit about a shipwreck. The design uses daylight to give the exhibit an underwater appearance. Five thicknesses of translucent blue plastic create a pattern of lighter and darker bands using a single filament colour. The team printed and tested the panel and developed a simulated sensor to monitor ambient light and temperature.

The project was completed in fall 2025 for ES1050 at Western University by Georgia Pitblado, Gabriel Henriques, Gewei Huang, Nour Hamam, Stoyan Sendov and Jayden Holt (team L21-05).

The team designed the panel to use daylight to recreate the blue tones of an underwater scene. On bright days, filtered daylight could provide some of the exhibit lighting, allowing the museum to dim its electric lights.

The team selected 480 nm as the wavelength of interest and aimed to reduce light intensity at that wavelength by 80%. The panel had to fit within 110 × 85 mm, use one filament colour and have a maximum thickness of 0.8 mm. The filament budget was $40 per square metre of panel.

The team considered a spotlight, a circular pattern and a triangular spotlight before selecting irregular nested shapes. The spotlight depended on the position of the sun, while the circular and triangular patterns appeared too uniform for the intended scene. The nested contours gave the team a way to vary brightness across the panel as well as over the course of the day.

The centre of the pattern is 0.4 mm thick. Successive bands increase in steps of 0.1 mm, up to 0.8 mm. With a print layer height of 0.1 mm, the centre contains four layers and the thickest regions contain eight. The team modelled the panel in Onshape and prepared the print in PrusaSlicer.

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  Panel thickness ranges from 0.4 mm in the lightest blue region to 0.8 mm in the darkest.
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  Light passing through the panel casts a blue patch on the surface below.

To reproduce the panel, open the 3MF project in PrusaSlicer, or import the STL and check its scale. Lay the flat 110 × 85 mm face on the print bed and confirm that the maximum height is 0.8 mm. Slice the model and inspect the layer preview: the thinner regions should finish before the outer bands. The time and material estimates above come from the team's sliced model.

Team's Onshape model

The team used a multichannel spectrometer to assess the printed panel at 480 nm and calipers to check its dimensions. Classmates also evaluated the appearance of the design.

The team designed a separate sensor to display ambient light and temperature. In the Tinkercad simulation, an Arduino Uno read a photoresistor and a temperature sensor and displayed both readings on a two-line LCD. The team modelled an enclosure measuring 80 × 65 × 21 mm in Onshape. The estimated component and enclosure cost was $45.53 against a $50 budget. The sensor was evaluated in simulation; the optical result above came from the physical panel.

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  Tinkercad simulation of the light and temperature monitor.
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  Exploded CAD view of the sensor enclosure.

The panel met its dimensional and material-cost constraints. The main unresolved design question was how to attenuate more light at 480 nm within the 0.8 mm thickness limit. A useful next test would be to print flat samples at each of the five band thicknesses and measure them under the same light source. Those results would show whether changing the area occupied by each band could bring the panel closer to the target, or whether a different translucent filament would be needed.