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)

Precision modeling in Blender


With 3D printing, every object comes out of Blender into the real world. It must fit on the printing bed of a real 3D printer. It has real walls that must support the weight of the object; it's got real limits on how small or large the detail can be.

Nothing in the real world is perfect.

Note

One note on the instructions in this book. Sometimes several keys need to be pressed at the same time. These will be represented with a plus between them such as Shift + D. Press both keys at the same time.

Pressing several keys in sequence will be represented by the word "press" followed by the keys separated by spaces, such as press S Y 0 Enter. You would press the S key, then the Y key, then the 0 key, and finally the Enter key.

Some commands may use both, such as press Shift + D Enter. Here, you would press the Shift and the D key at the same time. Then you would press the Enter key.

  1. Open Blender or open a new file by navigating to File | New File in the upper-left corner...