9 KiB
+++ title = "3D Modeling and CAD" date = 2018-07-05 authors = ["Aron Petau"] banner = "/images/render_bike_holder.png" description = "Modelling and Scanning in 3D using Fusion360, Sketchfab, and Photogrammetry"
[taxonomies] tags = [ "3D printing", "design for printing", "functional design", "fusion360", "parametric modelling", "photogrammetry", "polycam", "private", "scaniverse", "sketchfab", "university of osnabrück", "virtual reality", "work", ] [extra] show_copyright = true show_shares = true +++
3D Modeling and CAD
Designing 3D Objects
While learning about 3D Printing, I was most intrigued by the possibility to modify and repair existing products. While there is an amazing community with lots of good and free models around, naturally I came to a point where I did not find what I was looking for readily designed. I realized this is an essential skill for effectively operating not just 3D Printers, but any productive machine really.
Since youtube was the place I was learning all about 3D Printing, and all the people that I looked up to there were using Fusion 360 as their CAD Program that’s what I got into. In hindsight, that was a pretty good choice and I am in love with the abilities parametric design gives me. Below you will find some of my designs. The process is something that I enjoy a lot and wish to dive into deeper.
By trial and error, I already learned a lot about designing specifically for 3D Printing, but I often feel that there are many aesthetic considerations in design that I am not familiar with. I want to broaden my general ability to design physical objects, which is something I hope to gain during my master’s.
{{ image(url="/images/breast_candle.jpg", alt="A candle made of a 3D scan, found on https://hiddenbeauty.ch/", pixels=true, start=true) }}
Check out more of my finished designs in the Prusaprinters (now Printables) Community
{{ image(url="/images/vulva_candle.jpg", alt="A candle created with a 3D printed mold made in Fusion360", pixels=true, start=true) }}
3D Scanning and Photogrammetry
Besides coming up with new objects, incorporating the real world is also an interest of mine.
Interaction with real objects and environments
In the last few years I have played around with a few smartphone cameras and was always quite sad, that my scans were never quite accurate enough to do cool stuff with them. I could not really afford real 3D scanner and had already started cobbling together a raspberry Pi camera with a cheap TOF sensor, which is a simple, but not quite as good replacement for a laser or a lidar sensor, but then Apple came out with the first phones with accessible Lidar sensor. Recently, through work at the university I got access to a device with a lidar sensor and started having fun with it. See some examples here:
This last one was scanned with just my smartphone camera. You can see that the quality is notably worse, but considering is was created with just a single, run-of-the-mill smartphone sensor, I think it is still pretty impressive and will certainly do something towards democratizing such technologies and abilities.
Perspective
What this section is supposed to deliver is the message that I am currently not where I want to be navigating the vast possibilities of CAD. I feel confident enough to approach small repairs around the flat with a new perspective, but I still lack technical expertise when approaching a collection composite parts, having to function together. I still have lots of projects halfdone or half-thought and one major reason is that there is no real critical exchange within my field of study.
I want more than designing figurines or wearables. I want to incorporate 3D printing as a method to extend the abilities of other tools, have mechanical and electrical purposes, be foodsafe and engaging. I fell in love with the idea of designing a toy system, inspired by Makeways on Kickstarter, I have already started adding my own parts to their set.
I dream of my very own 3D printed coffeecup, one that is both foodsafe and dishwasher-surviving. For that, I would have to do quite a bit of material research, but that just makes the idea so much more appealing. I would love finding a material composition incorporating waste to stop relying on plastics, or at least on fossile plastics. Once in Berlin, I would want to talk to the people at Kaffeform producing largely compostable Coffee Cups incorporating a significant amount of old ground espresso, albeit using injection molding for their process. The industry selling composite filaments is much more conservative with the percentage of non-plastic additives, because with a nozzle extrusion process there is much more to go wrong. Still, I would love to explore that avenue further and think there is a lot to be gained from looking at pellet printers.
I also credit huge parts of my exploration process into local recycling to the awesome people at Precious Plastic, who I will join over the summer to learn more about their system.
I find it hard to write anything about CAD without connecting it directly to a manufacturing process. And I believe that's a good thing. Always tying a design process to its realization, grounds the process and attaches to it some immediacy.
For me to become more confident in this process, I am still missing more expertise in organic shapes, so I would be happy to dig more into Blender, an awesome tool that in my mind is far too powerful to dive into it with just youtube lessons.