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

Modeling from a photo

For this example, we are going to start a model from scratch. I like the idea of making something that is fun to look at but still functional. Since one of the things that 3D printer owners seem to be asked to help with on a regular basis is creating awards (I have been asked to make trophies at least a half dozen times), we are going to be modeling a little trophy that you can display on your desk, something similar to what is shown in Figure 6.1:

Figure 6.1 – Final printed trophy

Figure 6.1 – Final printed trophy

I say that it will look something like this because you will be using your own image for this model. If you do not have a photo to work from, you can copy the image I used from the example file, 3D Printing with SketchUp Chapter 6 – Trophy.skp, in the scene named Reference.

With that, let’s hop into SketchUp for Web and model a trophy! In this chapter, I will be showing the SketchUp Go or SketchUp Pro version of SketchUp for Web...