Member type3secretion Posted September 6, 2011 Member Report Share Posted September 6, 2011 Hi, noob here! In brief, I make flues for a hobby (wood, ceramic) and decided to try 3D design etc. Seemed endless possibilities. I began by working with a CAD designer, sending 2D schematics, getting models, testing prototypes, altering designs based on performance, etc. I'm getting close to the point where some initial designs are where I'd like them musically. I'd like to incorporate some decorative aspects. Some might be sculpting, but this will take me some time to learn (also considering some outsourcing here too). The other was mapping images/patterns/colors to the flute surfaces, then using a 3D color printing technology to realize them. I know there are issues of materials safety (actually, it's hard to find any hard data on the Z-corp materials and safety), but I'm hoping long term this will be worked out. Also, I plan to coat in polyU which is considered mostly food safe. Anyway, an issue to work out. I'm sure the printed ceramics will be another route down the road, too. Right now, I'm considering buying 3D-Coat, but before I spend the money, I need to know whether I can output the images I'm seeing in the demo in a way that I can have a service like Shapeways etc print them. I basically import a .wrl file, import an image as a jpg, then use the "Fill" command in the Paint mode, choosing entire object. This has done well visually in the program (some distortion but looks cool), without messy UV mapping issues (for a noob). However, I don't know if this sort of painting can be exported in a way that 3D printers can realize them. I know when you UV map textures etc it works when you output the maps etc. What I don't know is what the heck "Fill" is actually doing! Thanks for any help! t3s ps In case your interested, here is a demo of the first flute I printed from 3D CAD designs: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10352541/thin.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 6, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 6, 2011 In running through the process of importing a model etc into 3D-Coat, it seems that it can (and what I have been doing) is automatically creating a UV map. So, in theory, this is what "Fill" is painting onto, and therefore I can (if I buy the full version), export the UV map and bundle all this for Shapeways or some other 3D printing service for color printing? Thanks for any clarification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 7, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 7, 2011 In running through the process of importing a model etc into 3D-Coat, it seems that it can (and what I have been doing) is automatically creating a UV map. So, in theory, this is what "Fill" is painting onto, and therefore I can (if I buy the full version), export the UV map and bundle all this for Shapeways or some other 3D printing service for color printing? Thanks for any clarification. OK, figuring this out, I think. I went ahead and bought the program, and exported OBJ, and there are UV maps, so it seems to have worked. Next I'll text how Shapeways handles these files. One thing next: can one "emboss" to the model surface a mapped image? There are some patterns that would be cool to have as slightly raised elements on a 3D print.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 7, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 7, 2011 OK, first issue for uploading: after going through meshlab and 3D coat, in netfabb, the dimensions are off. Now I could just scale those in netfabb, but will this mess up the UV map? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 7, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 7, 2011 OK, 3D-Coat lets you scale the obj on output. 25.4 for the inches to mm conversion. Now I need to find a program that can read in texture maps to verify independently of 3D-Coat that the map looks ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 7, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 7, 2011 OK, 3D-Coat lets you scale the obj on output. 25.4 for the inches to mm conversion. Now I need to find a program that can read in texture maps to verify independently of 3D-Coat that the map looks ok. OK! I just got done working out the bugs to see it in meshlab! At first it couldn't deal with the .mtl from 3D-Coat, but looking at the files (they are text files so it's easy to open them and fiddle, thank goodness not binary!), and I saw that 3D-Coat had used absolute file location designations (bad in general if I send this to shapeways) and also realized that I use mac type naming with spaces in directory names etc (which not all programs handle). So I changed those and it looked good in meshlab. Next is trying to upload to shapeways and see how it handles the file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member type3secretion Posted September 7, 2011 Author Member Report Share Posted September 7, 2011 OK, a completely self-contained thread, but anyway.... Got the thing to have the right dimensions and appearance on the shapeways website, but it required for me the following work flow: Initial CAD wrl (from SolidWorks) => meshlab => obj => 3d-Coat (autoUVs, fill painting, and scale by 0.0254 to convert English measures to metric) => Obj (alter MTL file texture map references: 3D-coat outputs the entire PATH, which isn't good for all programs or uploads to other file systems) => meshlab => X3D => zip together the .x3d and .jpg for the texture map => upload to Shapeways 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member spacepainter Posted September 8, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 8, 2011 Hey, nice flute! Hope it works well. I was trying to print colors to shapeways, but did not succeed yet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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