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Black Box
join:2002-12-21

Black Box to ruddypict

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to ruddypict

Re: 3D Printers

Ugh. They make the part drawings in Blender. While Blender is a really good tool for freehand it sucks at precision modelling. You cannot move the cursor to a location specified in coordinated or position a primitive object via numeric inputs.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

Google Sketchup is a bit more precise...

But YES for real world precision a true cad program like Autocad would be preferred over a 3D modeling app like 3DMax, Lightwave3D, Blender, Hexagon3D, etc...

ruddypict
join:2010-03-24

ruddypict

Member

I can see why the author used Blender. His printer is open hardware and he wants to reach as large an audience as possible. People can download Blender for free, and is cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux). Most people grabbing those files are converting it to a format for printing (like STL), not editing; for those who do want to edit there's nothing stopping you from importing it into Autocad.

Personally I find Blender's interface confusing. But it does export to a variety of formats and it hasn't let me down.

Google Sketchup is terrible for 3D Printing. Its not a solid modeller, its a surface modeller. There are plugins for exporting to STL but they only work about half the time (you can also import to Meshlab and export, but that doesn't always work either). Its actually a bit disappointing as I found Sketchup really easy to use. If more slicers could use Sketchup formats natively or if they came up with a clean way to make a solid model and export to STL, I'd definitely use it myself.

For the real world it really does depend on your application. Autocad would be great if you needed an extremely precise part, but it would be laughable to use it for jewellery or dental applications. Some modellers have 3d printing specific features which make them more appealing for this, like Rhino3d.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

How about Wings3D?

»www.wings3d.com/

It's free, a polygonal solid modeler and exports to the stl format as well as Maya's obj

Black Box
join:2002-12-21

Black Box

Member

said by vue666:

How about Wings3D?

»www.wings3d.com/

It's free, a polygonal solid modeler and exports to the stl format as well as Maya's obj

+1 Or FreeCAD.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

I've heard of it but never tried it. I did purchase a copy of TurboCAD years ago but it confused me... LOL

ruddypict
join:2010-03-24

ruddypict to vue666

Member

to vue666
Wings does look like it would be pretty useful. I will check it out.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

Easy to use too... and FREE. Available for Windows, Linux & MAC....

I use it quite a bit...