Book Image

3D Printing with SketchUp. - Second Edition

By : Aaron Dietzen aka 'The SketchUp Guy'
Book Image

3D Printing with SketchUp. - Second Edition

By: Aaron Dietzen aka 'The SketchUp Guy'

Overview of this book

Working with the amazing 3D printing technology and getting access to the printing hardware is now easier than ever before. While there are many other resources that cover the general process of 3D printing, this book is the ultimate guide to creating models for 3D printing using SketchUp. You’ll start with a basic understanding of how SketchUp is used in the 3D printing workflow and jump into the steps to create a print-ready model using only SketchUp. This 3D printing book will guide you in using SketchUp to modify existing 3D files and cover additional tools that make SketchUp an even more powerful modeling tool. As you advance, you’ll learn how to transform 2D images into 3D printable solids, how to create multi-part prints that can be assembled without the use of fasteners or glue, and how to make sure your model, whether designed from scratch or assembled from preexisting geometry, is ready to be made real via your 3D printer. By the end of this book, you’ll have the confidence to bring your design ideas to life by generating your own 3D print-ready models with SketchUp.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Prepared to Print
6
Part 2: Modeling for 3D Printing

Exporting files for 3D printing

As you use SketchUp in your 3D printing workflow, you will be exporting a lot of .stl files. There will be times when your model goes from SketchUp to the slicer and the printer without issue. But sometimes, you will be jumping back and forth between SketchUp and your slicer, trying to get a model perfect for printing. Still, other times, you may not know that a model needs to be changed until after it has been printed! Regardless, you will need to know the process of exporting a .stl file. Fortunately, SketchUp makes this process as easy as possible, in any version.

Exporting a .stl file from SketchUp for Web

The process of exporting a .stl file from SketchUp for Web is the same if you are a Free or Go user. For this example, we need to open a SketchUp file, so we have some geometry to export. We will use the baby coffee mug from Chapter 1, Getting Started with 3D Printing Using SketchUp, as an example model, 3D Printing with SketchUp Chapter...