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

Using Solid Tools

Solid Tools are great tools for interacting with simple and complex 3D shapes. Using Solid Tools, you can cause two or more solid groups to combine or use one solid as a way to subtract from another. You can even use Solid Tools to create a new volume that represents where two shapes overlap in 3D space!

Groups, components, and Solid Tools

The decision to use groups or components can have many reasons behind it. In the case of Solid Tools, you will want to use groups. Once you perform an action using Solid Tools, the resulting geometry will always be created in a new group. This means that, even if the initial geometry is in components, you will end up with a group. For this reason, I usually stick with groups initially and make them into components after I use Solid Tools, as needed.

All of the Solid Tools can be accessed by clicking on the active Solid Tool on the toolbar (by default, this is the Outer Shell button, but if you have used a different Solid...