What’s the most frequently produced item on personal 3D printers? We don’t know – and probably no one knows – but we wouldn’t be surprised if it was Vases.
A browse through any repository of 3D models for printing will always yield a number of vase designs. Simple, complex, or incredibly complex are always available. We’ve printed, well, far too many vases here.
Some designers specialize in vases. Most 3D printer owners like to print them. But why?
We think there are a two reasons: they are relatively easy to design and relatively easy to print.
First, the design. 3D modeling a vase can be quite straightforward: simply make a circularish shape and extrude it upwards. Pop on a bottom and you have a vase. The resulting shape can be contorted with various software tools to arrive at an endless variety of shapes.
Second, the printing. Vases typically have circular or near-circular flat bases, which by chance happen to be the optimum profile for reliable 3D printing: flat bases obviously stick well as a first layer of printing, but the circular nature tends to cut down significantly on warping problems.
How many vases have you 3D printed?
Image Credit: Digi Wabi Studio