SketchUp can be used for so many things, including paper product packaging. I recently bought a Cricut Maker, which is a paper/vinyl cutting machine, and used SketchUp to design the product packaging for some jewelry I designed. This video is an overview of the workflow, and an introduction to the Cricut Maker and what it’s capable of. In the next …
Introduction to Quad Modeling
Quad modeling is simply the practice of modeling faces that have 4 edges and 4 vertices. In this article, I’ll attempt to explain why you might want to do that, and introduce you to some plugins that can help you work with quads. What is a quad? I used to think a quad was some sort of special entity type, …
3D printing a replacement handle – PART 2
Watch Part One In this video you’ll see me troubleshoot and export this small section of the handle and print it out on my MendelMax 3. I then make some adjustments to the model, export the full sized handle, and print it out. LINKS MendelMax 3 http://www.makerstoolworks.com CURA slicing and printing software (FREE) https://www.mastersketchup.com/cura STL plugin https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sketchup-stl Solid Inspector https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/solid-inspector%C2%B2 …
3D printing a replacement handle – PART 1
In this video, I’ll show you how I designed a replacement handle for a trailer jack wrench using SketchUp. I use the Follow Me tool to extrude a profile around a circle to create the final model. You’ll learn some workflow tips as well to preserve the various stages of your design, and how to extract parts of it for …
14 tips for designing prototypes for 3D printing
3D printing is an excellent technology for creating prototypes. In this article, I’ll share my tips for creating a 3D printed clip for my audio recorder. These tips will help you design your own objects that interact with your phone, remote, camera, or any other object you’d like to design an accessory for.
When you own a 3D printer, you start thinking about all the awesome things you can design for the various gadgets you own. In my most recent project, I wanted to design a clip that would allow me to mount my audio recorder to my belt, or to a tripod.
As I finished up the model, I thought it would be helpful to share a list of tips I use in my workflow that you can apply to your own 3D printing project. Most of these tips can be used with any 3D modeling software, not just SketchUp. They will help you save time, model more accurately, create a stronger model, and reduce warping. Let me know if you have any additional tips in the comments below.
Design Considerations for 3D printing
When creating a model for 3D printing, there are several things you must keep in mind in order to be able to print successfully, especially when using a desktop printer. This article highlights some of the things to look out for. As in any type of manufacturing, there are certain limitations to the materials and manufacturing processes that dictate how …
Working with STL files in SketchUp for 3D printing
STL files are the most common file type for models designed for 3D printing. If you’re trying to work with STL files within SketchUp, you’ll find it challenging because all of the faces are subdivided and there are a ton of extra edges throughout. In this article, I share my tips for working with and modifying STL files so you can 3D print them.
If you’re into 3D printing, you’re probably familiar with sites like Thingiverse and Youmagine, which host thousands of free 3D models from users all over the world that you can download and print out on your 3D printer. If you want to print a model, you just download the STL file, load it into your printer software, (I use Cura, from Ultimaker), and you’re all set.
But what if you want to make some changes to the model? If you open it in SketchUp, you’ll probably notice a lot of problems with the STL file that make it really difficult to edit. Things like subdivided faces, (Edges that divide a face into multiple faces, even though they are on the same plane), make it impossible to use the Push/Pull tool on a surface. Many times they are missing faces altogether, or extraneous edges acting as prison bars over any holes or cutouts in the model.
MakerFaire 2013
Back in September, I attended the 2013 World Maker Faire in New York. This was my second time going to the faire, only this time I received a personal invitation from the SketchUp team to join them in the SketchUp booth for the weekend! It gave me the opportunity to talk to a ton of people about SketchUp, and introduced them to a few open source projects that SketchUp partnered up with for the event.
What is MakerFaire?
Maker Faires are events organized by Make Magazine, a really cool company that is at the center of the Maker Movement. “Makers” are people just like yourself, who love to build, create, tinker, think, question, experiment, and MAKE all sorts of things.
Best 3D Printing Plugins for Sketchup
Sketchup is a great tool for creating models for 3D printing. I recently built my own 3D printer and have been learning a lot about how to design printable models in Sketchup. These are the 3 plugins I can’t live without when modeling things for my printer.
NOTE: Depending upon which version of Sketchup you have on your computer, there are different methods of installing plugins. With Sketchup Make & Sketchup Pro 2013, they introduced the Sketchup extension warehouse which makes installing plugins much easier than before. The only problem is that they don’t have ALL of the plugins available. Some of the plugins I recommend below are not available through the extension warehouse, and must be downloaded from the Sketchucation forum. If you don’t have Sketchup 2013 or you are trying to install one of the plugins not hosted on the extension warehouse, I recommend checking out Installing the Sketchup STL Exporter Plugin for details on how to install these types of plugins.
8 Tips for 3D Printing with Sketchup
I am new to the world of 3D printing. So in this guest article, you’ll hear from expert 3D printer/designer Marcus Ritland from Denali 3D Design. He shares some tips to help you create amazing 3D printed models by designing them in Sketchup.
3D Printing
3D printing is awesome – we can all agree on that. You send a 3D computer model to a machine and out comes a finished part, ready to use as an end product or as a prototype before mass manufacturing. With the rise of personal 3D printers like the Makerbot Replicator 2, and 3D print services like Shapeways and Ponoko, nearly everyone has access to this technology.
But how does one get started making awesome models for 3D printing? Its one thing to make a model look good on the screen, but quite another to make a model that looks good and actually works in real life. The process of modeling for 3D printing is much the same as 3D modeling anything else, but with a few specific requirements. Here are some common problems that I see beginners struggling with and how to address them.
Tips for modeling in Sketchup
- Make your model “Solid” in Sketchup to be 3D Printable
Models must be “Solid” to be 3D printable. This is by far the most common problem beginners have when modeling for 3D printing. Here are some examples of Solid Sketchup models.
Solid, sometimes called “watertight” or “manifold” simply means the model is a complete enclosure. If you were to fill it with water, none would drain out, and the model must not have any extra lines or faces. If you make your object into a group or component, Sketchup will indicate when its solid in the Entity Info dialog box (Window > Entity Info).
Another way to define solid: Every edge in your model must be bordered by exactly two faces. If an edge has less than two faces bordering it, there is an adjacent hole, and if there are more than two faces touching an edge, there is an extra face that needs to be deleted.
The most common errors (and the corresponding solutions) are:
- Stray edges (just delete them)
- Holes (trace an edge to fill them)
- Internal faces (delete them)
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