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

Grid paper trace method


There is another trick to measuring complex shapes that involves a common household item. An object with a complex shape can be traced on a piece of grid paper. That grid paper trace can then be scanned or photographed, uploaded to the computer, and imported into modeling software to recreate its shape. By tracing the shape on graph paper, there is a scale reference in the modeling software.

Suitable objects

The ideal object for this method of measuring is an object with a complex and otherwise difficult to measure shape but with at least one flat side so that it's easy to lay flat on a piece of paper. If the object doesn't have a flat side, being able to make one side flat will do the trick.

For example, this piece of plastic attaches to the back of a drawer to guide it along a rail so that it moves smoothly and straight:

The back of this piece is almost flat, except for 2 nubs sticking out, which would be easy enough to remove. Simply note the location of parts that...