Fab Academy

Miguel Lourenco
 


 
 
 

  
 
 3D Scanning and Printing
3D Printing

For this assignment I decided to model a replica of Posat1 satellite to honor Carvalho Rodrigues (Portuguese scientist) on the 20th anniversary of the Posat1 launch (1993-2013).

In the first place I used the CAD tools trying to draw the model with reduced scale proportions. although, it was not necessary because even when using parametric CAD tools should always use real dimensions.

The Autodesk Inventor is a powerfull CAD tool to drawing simple and complex solid forms and maintain proportionality between all dimensions. The browser is shown like a tree on the left side and allows edition and manipulate the features that we used to draw the model.

 

At this step, the model is ready to save it as STL file (save copy as…)

 

 

 

After that, I used Catalyst (Dimension 3D Printer) and configured the settings to print the model, orientation, resolution, etc. to be sent it to the 3D Printer.

The necessary 114 layers was performed taking about 2h and 30min.

 

 

 

 

 

This video shows how the 3D Printer executes all of the 114 layers of ABS extrusion from bottom to Top of the model.
 


  The next video, on the right, shows 3D Printer working on the model.

 

Final 3D printed model.

 

 

 

 

 
 

Carvalho Rodrigues

 

Modelling sequence

 

Parametric modelling

 

Catalyst settings

 

 

 

3D Printer working

 

Finally we got the message “Completed”. And get the rough ABS model with support material to be removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modela - Scanning a PC mouse

Defining scanning area and pitch

Scanning result

netfabb - cutting actions

netfabb - Repair action

MeshLab - Filters

netfabb - another cutting

netfabb - analysing and finishing

3D Scanning

I would like to scanner a PC mouse and after that, edit the resulting IGES or even STL file to modify it and print using another scale.

Defining scanning area and pitch (x=1 mm, y= 1 mm) within Dr. Picza – Modela.

It would be good if the software allows better defining the scanning volume. It would help to save much time.

I was hoping that the process was not so lengthy but was wrong.

 

 

 

However lower resolution adopted, the “modela” took more than 3h performing scan operations. And I made at least one mistake doing scanning all the volume of the model instead of scanning half of it due its symmetry.

When I figured that it was too late and I left the modela to finalize the job.

 

For mesh fixer, begun to open de STL file, exported from modela, in netfabb and used cut tool to trim some protrusions.

 

 

As we can see on the right, the model contains errors in its mesh so it is necessary to use repair tools (netfabb). With netfab we can add or remove triangles from the stl file. In my case I did not have missing triangles in the stl mesh.

 

 

 

 

After repair the mesh the red/white triangle desappeared meaning that geometry problems are solved and we can save it.

 

 

 

 

 

After that, opened it in MesLab and used Filter-Point Set - Surface Reconstruction. Deleted original STL file, resulting a more smooth model. In the MeshLab exported it as a *.OBJ file.

 

 

 

Have tried meshmixer but did not save the results. I will try it again in the future for sure.

 

 

Finally, returning to netfabb and i had to trim it again, resulting a STL printable solid model.

 

 

 

 

I figured out that there are so many software applications that can to treat/fix scanning models, specifically, we can fix mesh gaps, get smooth surfaces, reduce complexity, etc, and finaly we can print it.