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

Editing geometry using native tools

The next step in creating our cheese-inspired pencil cup is adding random holes to the sides of the cup. This should be pretty simple, using some of the same tools we used to create the initial geometry.

Let’s start by drawing a few circles onto one of the sides of the cup. While we want the location of the circles to appear organic and random, we need to be intentional about their placement. Since we want our cup to be functional, I will keep the holes up, away from the bottom of the cup, so that my pencils don’t fall out the bottom. Additionally, I want to make sure that the holes are not too close to the edges. If I have a circle right up against the edge, it will interfere with the wall geometry of the next wall as I push the circle through.

After we create the circles, we will push them through to the opposite side of the cup. The easiest way to make sure that my circles will not lap over the side wall is to draw them on...