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

Creating basic geometry

For this example, we will model a print-ready model from scratch using only the tools available in the Free version of SketchUp for Web. This is modeling in its purest form. With this setup, we will have access only to the basic native toolset. If you happen to have a Go or Pro subscription, you can follow along in the full version of SketchUp for Web, as the UI and the commands are the same. If you prefer to follow along in SketchUp for Desktop, that should be easy enough, but be aware that any UI shown in the images of this chapter may look different from yours.

Now, all we need is an idea of what to model. Looking around my desk, the glass jar that I use as a pencil holder caught my eye. It is way too big for the few pencils and pens that I have on my desk, and to be honest, I have no idea where it came from. It seems like the perfect opportunity to have something that I designed and created on my desk instead.

Design time

I have never designed or...