3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

Joe Larson

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781785884320
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Graphics
• Index: Computer Science

Get to grips with 3D printing and learn to model designs using Blender

About This Book

• From the author who brought you the first practical look at 3D printing with 3D Printing Blueprints
• Get a comprehensive coverage of the prototyping techniques you need to know to start printing your own 3D designs
• Rekindle your mathematical genius to design personalized objects for complex puzzles

Who This Book Is For

If you're new to the world of 3D printing, this is the book for you. Some basic knowledge of Blender and geometry would be helpful, but is not necessary.

What You Will Learn

• Get to know about the different types of 3D printers and their limitations
• See how Y, H, and T shapes illustrate different ideas of successful 3D design for home 3D printers
• Set up and configure Blender to model a file for 3D printing
• Understand material characteristics, printing specifications, tolerances, and design tips
• Work through the techniques of editing complex meshes, smoothing, combining shapes, and exporting them into STL files for printing
• Break down complex geometries into multiple simple shapes and model them in layers using Blender
• Design, manipulate, and export 3D models for 3D printing with Blender
• Master the art of creating meshes, scaling, subdivision, and adding detail with the Boolean modifier as well as sculpting a custom shape
• Cut a model into small pieces and understand how to design complex interlocking joints that form a part of a jigsaw puzzle

In Detail

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.

Style and approach

This is a hands-on guide to the world of 3D printing. With the help of simple to complex projects, you'll learn various techniques to design 3D printable objects using Blender.

3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

---

Table of Contents

3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. 3D Printing Basics

What is 3D printing?

What defines 3D printing?

What to design for?

How do FFF printers work?

The anatomy of a print

FFF design considerations

Overhangs and supports

Supportless 3D printing

Y – gentle overhangs

H – bridging

T – orientation

Wall thickness

Holes in models

Summary

2. Beginning Blender

Why Blender?

The price is right

Blender is comprehensive

It's getting better all the time

But Blender isn't perfect

Downloading and installing Blender

The default view

The 3D View

The 3D cursor

The best settings

A scroll-wheel mouse and number pad

A laptop with a touch pad and no number pad

Object creation

Navigating the view

Jumping to rotation

Panning the view

Zooming the view

Orthographic versus perspective view

Wireframe and solid view

Transforming the object

Controlling transformations

Controlling the view

Axis locking

Precise transformation

Origin manipulation

Duplicating objects

Object selection

Shift select

Border select

Circle select

The Edit mode

Parts of objects

Incremental saving

Blender to real life

Exporting an STL

Summary

3. The Octopus Pencil Holder

Planning the project

The first basic shape

Smoothing the mesh with modifiers

Bending the tentacles

Flattening the bottom

Renaming objects

Adding a pencil cup

Adding a face

Finishing touches

Summary

4. Measuring Basics

Measuring with a ruler

Measuring with calipers

Manual or Vernier calipers

Digital calipers

Grid paper trace method

Suitable objects

Object preparation

Importing the image into Blender

Increasing reference pictures

3D scanning

Summary

5. An SD Card Holder Ring

Taking measurements

Modeling the ring

Modeling the finger

Putting the ring on the floor

Finishing the ring

Making a test print

Resizing the test ring

Adding an SD card holder

Organizing by layers

Creating a virtual SD card

Putting it all together

Extra credit

Summary

6. Sculpting the Face of the Sun

Creating the base object

Setting up sculpt

Drawing the face

Smoothing the edges

Adding the nose and eyes

Pulling out the rays

Sharpening the details

Summary

7. Cutting a 3D Jigsaw Puzzle

Resizing the model

How big should it be?

Scaling with properties

Building a puzzle piece

Building the basic shape

Sizing the puzzle piece blank

Turning a shape into an object

Adding some tolerance

Putting it all together

What if the Boolean modifier doesn't work?

Exporting and printing

Summary

Index

3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by...

Table of contents

• 3D Printing Designs: Fun and Functional Projects