i approached this week's assignment from a desire for real life solution. i have this mirror that i like and the bottom flourish on one side broke off, so i decided to scan and print the missing piece.
i used the Sense hand-held 3-D scanner, which uses and it took a few times to gauge a consistent distance with out it trying to pick up the table. after several scans at a further distance than what i thought i could get.
i decided to go with a decent one and cut and refine it in mesh mixer.
i did a basic tutorial for Meshmixer, and then began to manipulate my scan. to slice and discard part of a scan, under edit click plane cut. this allows you to draw a line and slice along that line. i cut off most of the scan.
i then used the mirror tool to flip the shape around an axis allowing me to get the complimentary side.
i did a few more plane cuts and then the lasso tool under select to draw a line around faces to delete. i then used a few of the sculpt tools to smoothe the texture of the surface.
click here for the stl file.
click here for the meshmixer file.
but, alas, this design could have been done by a subtractive process, so i created a design of two nested shapes in Antimony that could NOT be created subtractively which is pictured below. this shape could not have been made by any other process because there is a sphere that is completely covered by a semi-hollow pyramid. (perhaps it could be done subtractively by a master whittler, but not by a cnc). i then printed it out on the Makerbot z18 which uses a PLA filament to create the shape.
Click here for antimony file.
Click here for stl file.
we had alot of unexpected delays when trying to 3-D print in the lab today. after revisiting the manuals and troubleshooting the extruders we were able to print!
test print on the z18. we found that this machine offers good resolution (down to 2 mils), no shrinkage or difference in what the stated dimensions are in the file and what it actually printed, and a clearance boundary that was great to .044 in. when the walls were closer than that they were much leass structurally sound, some melted together and the very tip of the cone was slightly distorted.
this is how it started to print with supports off, cleared extruder jam, turned supports "on" ...
print with rafts and automated supports attached, next time i will practice inserting supports where i think they would best fit. these left a bit of roughness around where the edges of the pyramid and top of the circle cut-outs met.
print after cleaning it up with tweezers, and x-acto knife.