3D Printing

[jacq01]

   impressive detailing, looks good................
   But isn't there a danger?? 

   What about the fine motoric experiences ? 
   Building a lot of these parts  from scratch is helping in the developement of these visual and muscular functions.
   comparing the computer generated walls with p.e. the work from Nick, Chuck or Dallas there is a striking difference. Similar with manually drawn plans or CAD generated.
   The manual variants radiate something, maybe a human touch, that is lacking with the computer generated stuff.

   food for thoughts ?

    Jacq

[Frederic Testard]

Jacq, I agree about the walls that should show some human touch.
I think it's not the same for industrial parts that are expected to be made following precise processes by machines.

[eTraxx]

Jacq. If you go to the first page there are the gate valves in green that are made by hand from styrene. Just a bit below that are the same valves printed in 3D with one sitting on a dime. The ones that I made by hand were from plans that I modeled in Sketchup first ... then cut, filed and glued from styrene. The 3d prints are from that same Sketchup drawing. Me .. I prefer the second. The detail is better and so is the precision. Chuck Doan has been working on his 1/2 scale store for a while .. the pump, the meter on the wall are all 3d printings and would not be near as good hand made. JMO.

Secondly .. the 3d printed coke oven brickwork. The *plan* .. if successful .. is to use these prints as 3d masters for a RTV mold and then make castings in Hydrocal. The plaster castings would then be gone over and the individual castings/bricks distressed with a wire brush, needle etc.

I say .. the *plan* since I have never made a RTV mold. Time will tell.

[jacq01]

  Ed,

  my remarks are not intended as a critism on computer generated material.
    
  A manually made drawing has something that a CAD generated drawing has not....hardly noticable mistakes, still seen by the human eye.
  The same for machined parts, why do manually produced parts have such an appeal, think about steam engines, belt driven machines, old cars, etc.
  A model built up from computer originated parts has, for me,  less appeal than a model built up from manually made parts.
  In the drive to create more and more accurate models, the fear to make a small mistake, removes the human link to the models or project and it's creator.
  
 My concern is more about the development of fine motoric movement skills or beter the lack of it nowadays.

 Most here have, from a younger age, developed these skills and produced beautiful models from all sorts of materials.  In the younger generations these skills are little or not developed anymore, nor encouraged.  Writing with a pen, drawing with a pencil or ink, marking dimensions by eye/hand, making small parts with manual tools, they all require fine motoric control, that only can be learned, they do not come automatically. It all appears to be sacrificied for "efficiency".

 Refering to Chuck's work, the computer generated parts are by no means a replacement of skills. The way Chuck observes reality and converts that to a model is unique,  done with cleverly planned combination of present day tools and manual skills.  Talent is a word that comes in my mind here.  And there are more that use materials and skills based on their own experience and confidence to achieve outstanding results.

 My hope is that the use of computer generated AND manually produced parts do find a good combination and will be use with sense.

 Jacq

[BKLN]

Kids might not be encouraged or trained to develop fine motoric skills in school, but every kid has a parent. And it's the parents choice how to raise their kids. Wood blocks vs. TV, modelkits vs. game console. The list is endless.
A good read on the subject is "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew B. Crawford.

[finescalerr]

Most (or all) of us are from an older generation, one that appreciates craftsmanship, hands-on artistry, and the ability to play an acoustic musical instrument well. Younger people have grown up in a world where you never repair anything, where you use computers to create as much as possible, including music (even if the results are inferior), where everything is based on "financial practicality" and "time is money" and "good enough" is good enough.

How many times have I used music as an analogy to modeling? If you listen to today's popular music and compare it to that of the 1920s through the early 1960s you can hear the decline in concept and sophistication. Our world embraces mediocrity, conformity, passivity, etc. At the same time, technology offers us a universe of possibilities we never would have thought possible.

So tomorrow's modelers probably will be relatively few in number and most probably will use every technological advantage they can at the expense of hands-on craftsmanship. That's okay if they still bring the most important human elements to their creations, such as hand assembly and finishing, hand painting, and hand weathering. We should encourage people to make as much use as possible of their humanity and shrug off what we can't change. To attempt anything else would be to fight a losing, uphill battle.

Russ

[W.P. Rayner]

You said it mate... technology has opened up virtually unlimited creative opportunities that we could only dream of a few short years ago. However, basing a creation solely on technical prowess robs it of any soul. The soul in a piece comes from the mind, eyes and hands of the individual who created it, whether it's music, model-making, visual arts, whatever...

Apart from raising generations totally lacking in manners, respect, self-discipline, inquisitiveness, common sense, decency and the ability to think for themselves (but that's another rant), we've managed to create a society that by and large is satisfied with nothing better than mediocrity in all things. Forums such as this are a rarity and therefore worth every effort to keep alive and vital, if only for the satisfaction of a like-minded group of grumpy old men... ;-)

Paul

[eTraxx]

Eipiphany ---
Yesterday I just had an intersting experience .. a lucky accident followed instanously by an epiphany.

I have been happily modeling various and sundry objects in Sketchup and then either using CADspan (if the number of triangles were not too many) or Meshlabs to convert from .dae files to .stl ... then AccuTrans to check for watertighness ..  and I have successfully uploaded files to Print-A-Part and Shapeways. I have been mostly satsified ..

... except ...

Sketchup falls down when you get to small stuff. For example .. if you try to draw a circle that is under 0.018" radius .. it won't. A error screen pops up telling you that "Radius is too small".

This was a major problem when working in O scale / 1:48 .. after all .. that means that the smallest circle/hole you can draw in Sketchup is 0.018" radius .. a 0.036" hole. That's 1.728" .. pretty darn big to not be able to draw it. Crap.

The 'Workaround' has been to draw it larger like full-size and then scale afterwards. The problem is .. that you get all kinds of erratic behaviour once those dimensions drop to around that magic ~ .018" .. Sketchup leaves holes in the model .. basically just craps out.
---
Obtuse ---
I want to apoligize for being that .. obtuse that is. I suppose I could blame it on sucking up Agent Orange in Vietnam .. or the DU/Depleted Uranium in the armor of my tank in Desert Storm .. or even the Kuwati Krud everyone had in the last little go-around in OIF.

Ever since Chuck and Marc started to 'play' with 3d printing I was interested. I've had loads of fun and some success .. the major hang-up being that dang scale problem with Sketchup.
---
Revelation ---
So. I was uploading a file to Shapeways using their form .. and forgot to check the radio button for size. They ask you to check .. ( ) Meters ( ) Inches ( ) Milimeters. When I went to upload the file I got one of those messages you see .. the "You fogot to .. whatever"
.....
Please note: The STL file format has no native unit. A bit of a drawback for a 3D file format to say the least. The unit of measurement that you were using when making the model gets lost when the file is saved as an STL. So, a model that is 1 by 1 by 1, might be 1 cubic centimetre, 1 cubic inch or 1 cubic metre. This is why you have to choose the appropriate unit here so we know what size you would like your model to be.
.....

Woah. DOUBLE WOAH. I read over that a few times and let it sink in. WOAH again. A .stl file is just units. NOT a specific measurement ...

I brought up my 6" gate valve as modeled full size in Sketchup. I punched a series of holes in the flange - 'drilling' thm to clear a 3/4" bolt. Divide that by 48 to scale to O and you have a hole that is only 0.016" dia. That 0.008" radius is well below the 0.018" minimum radius that Sketchup will draw. Tossed in the bolt heads .. and added embossing on the side (curious to see if that prints).

Ok .. now this is where it got interesting ..

- The valve is a 6" valve. The throat (opening?) of the valve body is 6". In 1:48 that is .125" .. or 3.175mm
- I scaled my gate valve using the 'throat' (or whatever it is called) .. scaling the 6" to 3.175". Used CADspan and created a .stl file.
- Uploaded the file to Shapeways .. and told it that it was in * Milimeters *

SUCCESS!!!



So. There you go. I just wanted to post this up for anyone who also suffer from not understanding some basic .stl stuff with apoligies to those who TRIED to explain to someone that's evidently too dense. :/

[davej]

Why don't you draw and print the threaded part and handwheel too?

[eTraxx]

Why don't you draw and print the threaded part and handwheel too?

Interesting to see if they print ok. Darn small. The handwheels are only 12" dia (.250") and the valve stems 1-1/4" dia (.0.026"). Hoping that they won't warp since everything is so small. Will just have to see. There are two stems .. with this type of gate valve when you open the valve the handwheel stays in place and the stem moves up .. so one for a open valve and one for a closed. You can't really see in the photo but one handwheel has curvy spokes and one straight.

[davej]

You could add some support sprues connecting the handwheels - it would increase the parts cost, but they would be less fragile during shipping.

[finescalerr]

This is very useful stuff. Thanks for posting it. -- Russ

[W.P. Rayner]

What do you have your curvature setting set at Ed? Not sure if this is even a option in SketchUp, but your curves are a little "blocky." In the more sophisticated applications you can adjust this setting so there are many more segments to the curve making the end result much smoother. I hadn't noticed this before in your renderings, so perhaps it's just a rendering setting on the drawing of the gate valve.

Paul

[marc_reusser]

Paul,

SU does let you set your circle segments, there is a default until you change it, and then your new setting becomes/remains the default for that drawing.

Marc

[eTraxx]

Paul .. yep .. they are blocky .. but that valve is only .125" dia at the opening. The flange isn't much bigger then that and the blocky'ness doesn't matter in the print. I've started to 'bump up' the circle segments for larger models .. when I remember. Ha.