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

Object creation


Most tutorials for Blender start with navigating the 3D View. But in Blender, the default scene is kind of boring for this, just a cube that looks the same from every angle. Instead, let's make something more interesting to look at.

First, let's look at how to clear the default scene:

  1. Select all the objects in the scene by going to the 3D View menu and choosing Select | (De)select all twice or pressing the A key twice. Everything in the scene should have an orange line around it. If not, do it again.

  2. Delete everything by going to the 3D View menu and choosing Object | Delete or pressing the X key.

Your 3D View should now have nothing but the grid, which can be thought of as the floor of the scene.

To create an object, go to 3D View menu, choose Add or press Shift + A.

In the menu that pops up are all the basic objects that can be inserted into the scene. Blender offers many basic shapes that can serve as a starting point for anything you want to create. Sometimes, a basic object...