Blender 2.57 Is Official

Popular (and free) 3D modeling tool Blender is now version 2.57, as per the official release in April. This tool is very often used by consumer designers and makers to produce solid models for 3D printing. Blender sometimes gets a bad rap due to its rather difficult learning curve. But if you can get through that, you'll find Blender does almost everything. 

 

What's new in version 2.57? From their release announcement, 2.57 includes a very large number (500+) bug fixes. We suspect the massive user interface and other changes introduced in version 2.5 came with a few problems that may now be fixed. It may be a good time to get back to Blender if you've been elsewhere. Version 2.57 also includes all of the features originally planned for 2.5 but were postponed. 

 

Via Blender

Poor Man's 3D Printing: The Design

So you want to start 3D printing, but you have no money? It is possible to do 3D printing without much cash, and for starters you'd need to prepare your 3D model for printing. But how to do this without cash? Two ways: simply use a 3D model from a well-stocked repository or design a model yourself.

 

The best repositories are Thingiverse, Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse, Ponoko or TurboSquid. You might have to pay for models from Ponoko and TurboSquid, but the others have many free models. 

 

If you're preparing the 3D model yourself, you'll need a software package, and a fairly sophisticated one at that. 3D modelling can be quite complex, and you'll likely need to take several tutorials to get your legs if you haven't done it before. While you could spend a lot of money, even exceeding USD$10,000, on commercial 3D packages, here are the two major popular 3D modelling software options that are available at no charge:   

 

• Blender: a full-featured, multiplatform 3D modelling package, capable of doing much more than simply modelling 3D objects, as it includes rendering, animations, particles and much more. The downside to Blender is its interface, which some find very difficult to learn. 
• Google Sketchup: a basic 3D modelling program specifically designed to be simple to use. Indeed one often finds K-9 students deeply engrossed in Sketchup building fantasy homes or castles. The downside to Sketchup is a relative lack of advanced features you'd find in Blender. Sketchup has many plugins available, one of which enables export of .STL files suitable for 3D printing.

 

If you're just starting out, one approach might be to learn the concepts with the simple Sketchup interface, then move on to the more complex Blender when you're ready. 

 

Another approach often used is to obtain a model from a repository and then edit it using a modelling program. Multiple objects can also be combined into more complex items. 

 

Having completed your design, we'll next move on to printing on the cheap.  

WYSIWYG 3D Printing

Shapeways has taken a step to ease the design process by using Blender to render images of 3D models. This addition to their service permits users to have a reasonably close peek at what their printed object might look like after emerging from Shapeways fleet of 3D printers. The problem up till now has been that objects being designed convey a sense of color and feel based on their screen appearance, and when actually 3D printed in a typical material, the physical object doesn't match your visual expectations. 

 

With this new feature, Shapeways is doing "expectation management" in that you can see a reasonable facsimile of your object before it's actually printed. Could this be the first instance of WYSIWYG 3D printing services?

 

Via Shapeways

Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 Released

Many 3D modellers use the free Blender package if they can't afford the sometimes expensive commercial 3D modelling software options. While Blender is rather complete functionally, it has long had a reputation of being difficult to learn. This could be about to change with the introduction of their new version, 2.5. A new alpha release for Windows, OSX and Linux was just released on their download page.
 
What are the key differences? From the release notes:

• Big improvements - The 2.5 alpha 1 release has 100s of essential fixes compared to the alpha 0.
• Missing/Incomplete Features - Although most of it is there, not all functionality from pre-2.5 versions has been restored yet. Some functionality may be re-implemented a different way.
• Bugs - We've fixed a lot lately, but there are still quite a few bugs. This is alpha software, we're still working on it!
• Changes - If you're used to the old Blenders, Blender 2.5 may seem quite different at first, but it won't be long before it grows on you even more than before.

For us the biggest difference will be the user interface. Highlights:

• Blender 2.5 supports multiple top-level windows, which can contain any combination of further subdivisions and editor areas.
• Editor areas can be split and joined with the new window split action zone. Dragging the zone inside the editor area with LMB interactively splits a new window in between, dragging the zone into another editor area joins it.
• The new window manager also supports a generic system for further subdividing editor areas into regions for tool shelves, window headers, or split views. This allows (for example) a 4-way split 3d View which acts as a single editor, with common properties such as transform pivots and shading display types.
• Blender's property panels have had a complete overhaul and reorganisation. The previous 'buttons window' had become disorganised after years of expansion, inconsistently mixing tools and settings, and needed major systematic revisions. The new property editor has been redesigned to be better organised, more flexible so you can more easily hide what you're not interested in, clearer to navigate, and easier to understand.
• The new UI layouts are generated by Python script files, as part of the standard Blender installation. These layout scripts can be fully customised and modified in real time to allow you to modify the existing UI or create entirely new UIs from scratch.
• Blender's internal file browser has been upgraded with a friendlier design and more useful features. You can now switch between various (list/column/thumbnail) views, with background loading of thumbnails from any of Blender's supported image formats.
• Quick filters by file type are available, and a new customisable bookmark list. Importers and Exporters now provide their settings in the left properties region, to adjust at the same time as file selection.

Download and enjoy, Blenderites!

Via Blender.org

Prepping for 3D Printing

Shapeways published an excellent article describing several tips for preparing your Blender file for 3D printing, specifically for using the Shapeways printing service.

The article explains how to fix non-manifold vertices, handling overlapping objects and output scaling, and are good tips even if you aren't using Shapeways.

Via Shapeways