Book Image

3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

By : Joe Larson
Book Image

3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

By: Joe Larson

Overview of this book

3D printing has revolutionized the way that global industries conceptualize and design products for mass consumption. Considered as the next “trillion-dollar” business, every industry is in the race to equip its personnel with techniques to prototype and simplify complex manufacturing process. This book will take you through some simple to complex and effective principles of designing 3D printed objects using Blender. There is a comprehensive coverage of projects such as a 3D print-ready octopus pencil holder, which will teach you how to add basic geometric shapes, and use techniques such as extruding and subdividing to transform these shapes into complex meshes. Furthermore, you’ll learn to use various techniques to derive measurements for an object, model these objects using Blender, organize the parts into layers, and later combine them to create the desired object with the help of a 3D printable SD card holder ring design project. The final project will help you master the techniques of designing simple to complex puzzles models for 3D printing. Through the course of the book, we'll explore various robust sculpting methods supported by Blender to create objects. You’ll move, rotate, and scale the object, and manipulate the view. You’ll edit objects with actions such as bends or curves, similar to drawing or building up a clay structure of different shapes and sizes. By the end of the book, you will have gained thorough practical hands-on experience to be able to create a real-world 3D printable object of your choice.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The anatomy of a print


Now that the mechanics of FFF 3D printing are clear, it's time to take a look at how a print is built. If an FFF print is stopped partway through, or observed during printing, the following can be seen:

The following are the different parts shown in the preceding image:

  • Layers: FFF prints in layers, with each layer sitting on the one below it. Prints can be made with thicker layers so that they print faster or thinner layers so that they look better.

  • Outlines: When starting a layer, the outline of that layer will usually be printed first. FFF prints often have two or more outlines so that the outside of the print is strong.

  • Infill: once the outline is done, the rest of the layer is filled in. If an area of the print will not be seen from the outside when the print is done, a loose infill is used to save material and give layers above something to sit on. Top layers are filled in completely. Most FFF prints are largely hollow.