Belousov-Zhabotinsky decorative disk

This more of a prototype than a real design. I plan to work on more coasters, tiles, and resin molds using this idea, but it came out interesting enough to post.

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction is an oscillating chemical reaction that produces remarkable spiral patterns, which is my primary interest here. It can be simulated numerically, and depending on boundary conditions can be made into symmetric or periodic tiles.

This surface is the result of a simulation with 3-fold rotational symmetry cropped to a disk. The original image has three so-called species, each normally displayed in a different color. For this, we ignore colors and use concentration to define a height map to convert into a surface.

The given surface is just one of many possible spiral patterns given random initial conditions. I chose this as my favorite of several generated.

The model takes about one hour to print as supplied on a Flashforge Adventurer 3 Pro 2 in PLA and is 6cm in diameter, 4mm height. You can scale it safely since it is not functional. The At 10cm diameter, 7mm height, it takes about 3 hours to print and can be used as a coaster.