3D Printing Software for Beginners Guide
Posted by pinshape
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3D Printing Software for Beginners Guide July 02, 2015 04:24PM |
Registered: 8 years ago Posts: 16 |
Hey everyone!
We wanted to get a quick tutorial going for people who were thinking of starting 3D design. This blog post introduces some common + free softwares that can get you started This was a guest blog post from Lydia Cline, who's on several 3D printing communities as well!
[blog.pinshape.com]
We wanted to get a quick tutorial going for people who were thinking of starting 3D design. This blog post introduces some common + free softwares that can get you started This was a guest blog post from Lydia Cline, who's on several 3D printing communities as well!
[blog.pinshape.com]
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Re: 3D Printing Software for Beginners Guide January 30, 2016 12:21AM |
Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 5,780 |
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Re: 3D Printing Software for Beginners Guide June 10, 2016 09:02AM |
Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 5,780 |
Take a look at DesignSpark Mechanical. It is quite similar to Sketchup in terms of UI and ease of use and learning, but produces clean STL files that don't require repair before you can 3D print them. It has functions such as tangent arcs, fillets, thread generation, etc., that are difficult or nearly/generally impossible in Sketchup but only one or two clicks away in DSM.
DSM, like Sketchup, isn't very compatible with other CAD programs, so if you're doing commercial work, you might want to use a more professional package like Fusion 360 or OnShape. Both are complete CAD packages but have a much steeper learning curve than DSM and Sketchup. The advantage is the files they produce can be shared with your clients, fabricators, etc., and will probably work fine in their CAD software.
DSM is crippleware- they left out a few things. One of the DSM leave-outs that SketchUp has is the ability to put 3D text into your drawing. If you need to put text into your designs a lot, DSM isn't ideal. You can create text in SketchUp, export it as STL, then import that STL into DSM to get text into your DSM designs.
In case anyone is curious, the reason why SketchUp produces poor quality STL files that usually have to be repaired before printing is that in Sketchup, all curves are represented as polygons. That creates problems doing things like drawing tangent lines to curves because the only place you can connect a line to a curve in SketchUp is at one of the vertices of the "curve". If no vertex exists where you are trying to connect a line, it will connect to a nearby vertex or miss the vertex and connect to the drawing grid. That means the line may miss the curve completely or cross it at two or more points. You won't see it unless you zoom deeply into the drawing at the point where the line is supposed to meet the "curve". That sort of error propagates into the solids you create from your sketch and then ends up in the STL file. This is just one example of how the overlaps and misses are created. Other common operations will create similar errors that end up in the STL file. As far as I know, no other CAD software uses polygons to represent curves.
In most (all other?) CAD packages, curves are defined by mathematical curves. You can create a tangent line between two curves that is mathematically correct. You can pull a sketch created from such entities into a solid then export a printable STL file. Errors that propagate into the STL file are rare and usually automatically repaired by the slicing software.
I have heard some say that since STL files are all polygons you can't have true curves in your 3D prints anyway, so what difference does it make? The difference is that DSM and other CAD packages don't create the big STL file errors that SketchUp does. That makes the difference between having to repair STLs before printing and not having to repair them. Only you can decide if repairing STL files (and learning the software/process to do it) bothers you enough to learn some other CAD program.
Some of my earliest Thingiverse posts were done using SketchUp, before I knew better. After using it for a while and getting tired of having to repair the STL files, and the difficulty of doing common operations like filleting, I decided to find some other CAD and found DSM. I have since used OnShape and played a little with Fusion 360, but both have steep enough learning curves that I can't justify the effort to learn them for the noncommercial work I do. I would never recommend SketchUp to someone just getting into CAD for 3D printing. They are going to have enough problems to figure out without adding the complication of STL file repair.
SketchUp is great, powerful, free software and has a lot of uses, but designing parts for 3D printing isn't one of them.
Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]
DSM, like Sketchup, isn't very compatible with other CAD programs, so if you're doing commercial work, you might want to use a more professional package like Fusion 360 or OnShape. Both are complete CAD packages but have a much steeper learning curve than DSM and Sketchup. The advantage is the files they produce can be shared with your clients, fabricators, etc., and will probably work fine in their CAD software.
DSM is crippleware- they left out a few things. One of the DSM leave-outs that SketchUp has is the ability to put 3D text into your drawing. If you need to put text into your designs a lot, DSM isn't ideal. You can create text in SketchUp, export it as STL, then import that STL into DSM to get text into your DSM designs.
In case anyone is curious, the reason why SketchUp produces poor quality STL files that usually have to be repaired before printing is that in Sketchup, all curves are represented as polygons. That creates problems doing things like drawing tangent lines to curves because the only place you can connect a line to a curve in SketchUp is at one of the vertices of the "curve". If no vertex exists where you are trying to connect a line, it will connect to a nearby vertex or miss the vertex and connect to the drawing grid. That means the line may miss the curve completely or cross it at two or more points. You won't see it unless you zoom deeply into the drawing at the point where the line is supposed to meet the "curve". That sort of error propagates into the solids you create from your sketch and then ends up in the STL file. This is just one example of how the overlaps and misses are created. Other common operations will create similar errors that end up in the STL file. As far as I know, no other CAD software uses polygons to represent curves.
In most (all other?) CAD packages, curves are defined by mathematical curves. You can create a tangent line between two curves that is mathematically correct. You can pull a sketch created from such entities into a solid then export a printable STL file. Errors that propagate into the STL file are rare and usually automatically repaired by the slicing software.
I have heard some say that since STL files are all polygons you can't have true curves in your 3D prints anyway, so what difference does it make? The difference is that DSM and other CAD packages don't create the big STL file errors that SketchUp does. That makes the difference between having to repair STLs before printing and not having to repair them. Only you can decide if repairing STL files (and learning the software/process to do it) bothers you enough to learn some other CAD program.
Some of my earliest Thingiverse posts were done using SketchUp, before I knew better. After using it for a while and getting tired of having to repair the STL files, and the difficulty of doing common operations like filleting, I decided to find some other CAD and found DSM. I have since used OnShape and played a little with Fusion 360, but both have steep enough learning curves that I can't justify the effort to learn them for the noncommercial work I do. I would never recommend SketchUp to someone just getting into CAD for 3D printing. They are going to have enough problems to figure out without adding the complication of STL file repair.
SketchUp is great, powerful, free software and has a lot of uses, but designing parts for 3D printing isn't one of them.
Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]
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