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 default view


Blender's interface is made up of many smaller windows called panels. There are many different panels available in Blender. Like most things in Blender, the panels are completely configurable. Panels can be added or removed as needed, and panel layouts can be saved and switched among easily. For simplicity, the default view—the way Blender is presented the first time it loads up—will be used throughout this series. It provides most of the necessary functionality:

Note

For the most part, the screens shown in this book series will look similar to the default Blender screen. The major change will be to the background color of the 3D View, a choice made to make the illustrations more compatible with printing.

Here's an explanations of the different panels in the default view:

  • The Info panel: Located across the top of the window, the Info panel has many of the menu options in most programs, such as File, Window, and Help. It also has Layout settings, Scene settings, and Renderer...