Book Image

Blender 3D Printing Essentials

Book Image

Blender 3D Printing Essentials

Overview of this book

Like computing, 3D printing has been around for decades but it was expensive and was only used for making complex prototypes. Now, prices have dropped and third-party printing services such as Shapeways have become available, making the technology available to everyone.Blender is an open source modeling and animation program popular in the 3D printing community. 3D printing demands more of a modeler than animation or virtual reality. The model maker must engineer their model to work in the real world. They must keep in mind the particular needs of the materials and printers that they are planning to use to print their model. This practical guide gives Blender users all the information they need to design high-quality 3D printed objects. With a solid exploration of the 3D modeling process, design considerations for 3D printing, plus step-by-step exercises, you will soon be comfortable making 3D objects for real-world enjoyment. Starting with an overview of 3D printing, this guide moves onto to precision measurement, fixing problems in a 3D model, and how to make it light and strong enough for real-world use.You will learn how to scale, build, and detail a model for a 3D printer. You will learn to color and decorate it, as well as making parts precisely in the size you want them, so that multi-part objects fit together smoothly. You will also learn tips on saving money when you have printed your model.With the help of this guide, you will be able to complete your project and learn how to export the file so it is ready for a variety of 3D printers.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Exporting your 3D object


There are two kinds of files for exporting Blender objects to be printed in 3D; STL files and X3D files. A few 3D printer companies offer plugins that export Blender files to their website as well. STL files do not carry any color information. Your color comes from the color material that is chosen as I mentioned in Chapter 1, Designing Objects for 3D Printing. The pencil cup is an example of this. No material was ever specified. It takes its red color from the plastic chosen for printing. X3D files are really interactive 3D file formats; they carry color information and 3D printing bureaus accept them for printing.

When I am getting ready to export an STL or X3D file for 3D printing, I like to put the object(s) to be printed into their own layer of the Blender file, usually Layer 1.

Getting the orientation right

You've used Blender enough to be familiar with Blender's Z-Up axes as shown on the left-hand side of the following diagram:

Many 3D printers use a Y-Up orientation...