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JoiWiki » Maker » 3D Modelling 3D Modelling

3D Modelling

 

If you've got a 3D printer browsing through sites like Thingiverse or MyMiniFactory can be great fun, chosing the next thing that you want to print from a catalogue of designs and I've enjoyed my 3d printers in that way for years and loved the projects that I worked through, when you're re-flashing printer firmware and adding things like sensors etc it really doesn't feel as though you're an average consumer even if the things that you're actually printing are all picked off a shelf. 

 

 

 


 

OpenSCAD
  OpenSCAD is the first 3d modelling software that I played with for more than a few hours and that's mainly because it runs on code. The way that I have mine set up is that I edit text files with a .scad extension using Notepad++ and I also open that file in openscad, that way each time I save my file openscad re-loads it and shows me the results of any changes. As objects are created through code there isn't any support for things like sculpting but if what you're looking for is something that you want parameterised or can easily be described through primitive shapes then openscad is the way to go, it also supports you making your own libraries (if you're used to coding in that kind of a structure) so the more you use it the easier it becomes to make the things that you're interested in. 

 

 

 

Blender
  Blender on the other hand is a very different beast when compared to the lightweight and almost bare ui of openscad, Blender is an open source graphics application that does everything from 2d drawing to 2d object design, full sculpting and even full 3d animations if you like and with a full plugin market the functionality just keeps going. Whilst blender can definitely be daunting to the unfamiliar user there are hundreds of tutorials on how to use it on youtube, grab one for what you'd like to do and slowly learn the tools you'll need to do it - with blender being as fully functioned as it is the vast majority of users would happily say that they don't know how to use half of its capabilities and still get what they want out of it.

 Personally I use blender for more artistic applications than openscad, anything requiring sculpting or the use of more advanced tools than openscad provides is dealt with in blender. That said the two aplications work wonderfully together, you can set up the beginnings of an object in openscad, export the stl and then import that stl into blender to modify or add to

 

 

 

Created by JBaker. Last Modification: Saturday January 2, 2021 18:01:21 GMT by JBaker.

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