There are moments when it helps if a stranger knows. Not a conversation, not an explanation. Just something visible, so that when you hesitate at a step or miss an outstretched hand, it reads as what it is.
Badges like this exist, but they are usually only in English, and if you are travelling that is exactly when the problem is worst. So this is one model that produces the badge in five languages, and adding a sixth is a row in a table.
What it is
A 58mm round lapel badge, 3mm thick, with the artwork raised 1.2mm above the face. Blue base, yellow detail, printed as two parts in one object so the colours come out of the printer already separated rather than needing paint.
The symbol in the middle is the International Symbol of Visual Disability, the “shaded eye” introduced by the Partially Sighted Society in 1982 and recognised by the WHO. It is drawn here to print well at this size rather than copied from their artwork, but it is deliberately theirs in spirit, because the whole value of a symbol is that it already means something to people who recognise it.
Around the bottom rim, curved to follow the edge:
| Language | Wording |
|---|---|
| English | PARTIALLY SIGHTED |
| Italian | IPOVEDENTE |
| French | MALVOYANT |
| Spanish | BAJA VISIÓN |
| Japanese | ロービジョン |
Why the Japanese version uses katakana
A small decision that took a surprising amount of working out, and is the sort of thing this project is actually about.
The obvious Japanese rendering would be the kanji 視覚障害. It is wrong here for two separate reasons. The Japanese Society for Low Vision Research prefers the katakana form, because the alternative 弱視 collides with the medical meaning of amblyopia. And, decisively for something coming off a 3D printer, the kanji strokes are so dense that at this size the gaps between them close up into an illegible blob. Katakana’s open strokes stay crisp.
Both were rendered and compared before choosing. The right answer for a reader and the right answer for the printer turned out to be the same one.
If you do not have a printer
Most people who want one of these do not own a 3D printer, and that should not be the end of it. Three routes, cheapest first.
Somewhere local. Plenty of libraries now have a printer, and most towns have a makerspace or a hackspace. Universities and colleges often do too, and many will run a small job for the cost of the plastic. This is usually free or close to it, and you get to hand someone the file rather than posting it into a website.
Ask a local sight loss charity. If they have had a set printed, they may have spares. If they have not, asking is how it starts.
A print-on-demand service. Upload the files, pick colours, wait for the post. Several UK services will do this, and a few have multi-colour printers, which matters here: ask for two-colour, blue base and yellow detail. That is the whole point of the badge, and a single-colour print loses most of the contrast that makes it readable at a distance.
Names to start from, none of which I have used and none of which is a recommendation: Printhaus and Moose 3D both advertise multi-colour printing from an uploaded file. There are others. Compare on whether they can do two colours before you compare on price.
If none of that works, email me and say roughly where you are. I cannot promise anything, but somebody with a printer may be closer than you think.
If you have a printer, print some for other people
This is the useful thing you can do with this model, and it costs almost nothing.
Most people who would want one of these badges do not own a 3D printer, and most people who own a 3D printer do not need a badge. That is a solvable mismatch, and it does not need me in the middle of it.
Find a sight loss charity near you and offer to print them a set. Almost every town has one, often called something like a society for the blind, a sight loss council, or a low vision support group. They will usually have a resource centre, a support group, or a mailing list, and they will know who would use one far better than I do.
What to say is roughly: you have a 3D printer, there is a free open licence model of a partially sighted badge in five languages, would they like some. Print the English version unless you know otherwise, offer the others if anyone is travelling. Materials cost pennies per badge.
If they say yes, you have put a useful object into someone’s hands using capacity that was going spare anyway, and neither of us had to set up a shop to do it.
If you do this, tell me how it went. It is the only way I will ever find out whether these are any good.
Printing one
All five languages have been printed and checked. The STLs are ready to use . You need two files, the base plus the raised layer for your language, loaded together as one object so the colours separate on the printer rather than needing paint.
If you use Bambu Studio there is a tested print profile on MakerWorld, which saves setting it up yourself. If you would rather have the source, everything including the OpenSCAD model is on GitHub.
For wearing it: the back has a shallow pocket sized for a standard bar pin, set deliberately above the centre so the badge hangs upright rather than tipping forward. Cheap self-adhesive badge backs work too, and are what I actually use.
Want a language that isn’t here? Ask. Adding one is a single line, and I would rather add it than have someone go without.
The parametric bit
The badge is one OpenSCAD model rather than five drawings. It measures the actual glyphs of whatever text you give it, sizes the type so it clears the symbol, computes the letter spacing along the curve, and thickens the strokes so thin ones survive a 0.4mm nozzle.
That is what makes a new language cheap. Give it the wording and a font, and it works out the rest, then checks its own work by counting the separate islands in the finished mesh and warning if letters have merged into a blob or an accent has floated free. That check is exactly how the kanji problem got caught.