3D Printing

Creating Celtic Knots with Fusion 360

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Today we’ll do a step-by-step walkthrough tutorial on designing 3D Celtic knots from scratch with Fusion 360. Our technique will be to make a grid of dots, then connect the dots with splines, then shift those splines up or down at the crossing points. This gives us a thin curve that traces out the desired knot, and we’ll be able to sweep a circle around that curve to make a round 3D tube… // Shapeways Magazine

Targeted Thickening with Meshmixer

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Why would you want to thicken just part of a model? One reason is that sometimes a 3D model might get rejected from Shapeways during the pre-production process due to weak geometry or thin connections; this happened to us recently with a polyhedral Snub Cube design. In this post we’ll walk you through one way to thicken targeted areas of a 3D model using Meshmixer. // Column at Shapeways

Multicolor 3D Printing, from Tinkercad to XYZ

Multicolor 3D Printing, from Tinkercad to XYZ 640 480 mathgrrl
Today’s post is about something that is flat-out easy and in addition somehow actually works. Specifically, we have some good news: You can create color 3D designs in Tinkercad and import them directly into the XYZ da Vinci Color 3D printer for printing! I know, that sounds obvious, but in general color printing is hard and even getting the right kinds of files exported can be a tricky business… // Hacktastic

Three-Sided Cylinder Coins

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Today we 3D printed some cylinder coins for students and classrooms to experiment with after watching Matt Parker’s video “How thick is a three-sided coin?”. These fat coins can land on their edges as well as their faces. Try out different thickness-to-diameter ratios and search for the fairest three-sided cylinder coin! Download free 3D-printable files or order cost-optimized prints from Shapeways… // Hacktastic

Making Meaning

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Okay, it’s 2018 and time to start all over again. But sometimes the process of getting started is… hard to get started. How do you even start planning out a project? Today on Tutorial Tuesday we’ll talk about new beginnings and some projects we’re starting this year, including the sometimes messy process of figuring out what to make and what it means to be meaningful… // Column at Shapeways

Family Design Roundup

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This Tutorial Tuesday we’ll highlight some of this year’s 3D design tutorials that even the youngest (or oldest!) of your loved ones can use to make custom and personalized 3D prints in just a few minutes. Choose one of the tutorial introductions below and get started creating in no time with Tinkercad, Hero Forge, Cura Lithopanes, the Snowflake Machine, Morphi, BlocksCAD, or 3D Slash… // Column at Shapeways

Design Exploration with Vectary

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Today’s 3D printing advice: Figure out what your design software is good at doing and THEN design something, not the other way around. If you start the design process with a rigid idea of what you want to make, then you’ll have to bang your head against the wall to try to get your software to do what you need it to. But if you have the luxury of being flexible about what you’re designing, then you can… // Column at Shapeways

Vases in Fusion 360 Two Ways: Lofting and Sculpting

Vases in Fusion 360 Two Ways: Lofting and Sculpting 453 344 mathgrrl
Today we’ll review two simple but powerful ways to make a custom vase in Fusion 360, and also give you some tips on how to keep your printing costs down. It’s easier than you might think to make a unique custom vase design, even if you’re new to 3D modeling. One good place to start is with excellent video walkthrough Crazy Vases using the Loft Feature in Fusion 360… // Column at Shapeways

Organic Snowflake Ornaments

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This year we created six beautiful organic snowflake designs, procedurally generated with code in a way that mimics the way that actual snowflakes form as they fall to earth through changing temperature and atmospheric conditions, including random “wiggles” that introduce imperfections into the structure of the flake. The six flakes were created to represent Estonia, Finland, Canada, Russia, Iceland, and Switzerland… // Hacktastic

Make One Billion Snowflakes With the Snowflake Machine

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In this Tutorial Tuesday we’ll make personalized 3D printed snowflakes using the Snowflake Machine, a Customizer built on OpenSCAD code that can procedurally generate over one billion unique snowflakes based on random seeds and user-set design parameters. Don’t worry, it’s easier than that just sounded! Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide so you can get your holiday snowflakes… // Column at Shapeways
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