This week we discussed all sorts of possibilities in 2D and 3D design. A big take-away: parametric. We were introduced to 2D drawing tools such as Illustrator, Inkscape, Gimp, and FreeCAD. 3D ones were are Rhino, SketchUp, Maya, Blender, Tinkercad, and 123D. I worked a bit in inkscape yet am so familiar with Illustrator that I felt myself getting pulled back towards the efficiency of working with a program I am familiar with. 3D modeling is totally new to me. I worked primarily in SketchUp wich I found to be exciting in that it was immediate learning. Rather quickly I was able to familiarize myself with the tools such as the tape measurer, the pencil, the arc drawer, and the push/pull tool. What ended up taking hours was the plugins.

Plugins…I’d heard this term casually thrown about like it was just an easy little click of a button and there this fancy extra power nugget would be on your toolbar. I am sure it is this way for some…but not for me. I ran into the problem of not being able to find my extensions, after numerous help forums noted they could be found in Library>Application Support>SketchUp2015>Plugins. Well, I was looking in the User portion of my computer, which led me down another rabbit hole when I found out I no longer had a Library folder under ‘User’! I read some more about that…apparently the latest updates have reconfigured some things, emptying the local applications out of my applications folder as well (I had no idea they existed as symlinks in the user folder!). When I finally was able to see make my User>Library folder visible, I found that all my .rbz plugin files were going there, and needed to be moved into the hard drive application support folder. I did that and was finally able to get the one plugin I was wanting…rounded corners.

I then settled into the task of creating the projector body. I was inspired by the design of old camera equipment, which is really nothing unusual as there is a cult following that continually resurrects the designs, such as Projecteo, or Poloroid (bringing itself back!). The designs are boxy, sturdy, and have a stubborn personality. The shape of the little projector I have in mind, and the need for a protected outer shell reminded me of a turtle, with its head (lens) poking out, and little legs for balance. So I decided that would be the inspiration for my design. At first I just made the curved box, but then realized that that I wanted it to curve/taper along all axis. I had to redraw both the top and the bottom many times.

Working with SketchUp was fun and accessible, and think it would be a great starter for young folks too. That being said, I think I would like to learn Rhino for future modeling. SketchUp was great for taking down the barrier to sketching and imaging in 3D computer space. I had a hard time just making walls versus creating solids, figuring out the rotation, getting accurate final measurements instead of ~approximate ones and finally, making the file export as an STL file. I have yet to accomplish turning .skp into an STL file. Which is pretty important for 3D printing! While I was able to render in 3D, I feel I could take another week at least teaching myself Rhino. Then try modeling this again. It is a snowy winter here in Providence and the snow days are keeping us from getting together as a class. I imagine a lot of my questions have very easy answers.

relevant file:
Projector in SketchUp