3D Scanning and Printing

assignment assignment assignment

   group assignment:

  •       test the design rules for your 3D printer(s) 
  • Link : Group assignment

   individual assignment:

  •  design and 3D print an object (small, few cm3, limited by printer time)
             that could not be made subtractively
  • 3D scan an object (and optionally print it)


For this week we tested the different 3d printers, the Bambu printer was by far the fastest compared to the Prusa printers.  It was significantly faster, for example one of the tests took 38 minutes and 10 seconds on the Prusa mini but only 20 minutes on the Bambu.

The beginning- Morningstar

I did some 3d designing for blender and tried printing it in order to learn to use the Bambu 3d printer

I made a spiky ball with a way to attach a chain to it: A morning star
Now before you judge I want to clarify this weapon is NOT being made for malicious purposes.
The story: Our local theater group; Leikfélag Vestmannaeyja is setting up a play. The play is: SPAMALOT! It's a musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. :

MontyPython

What they asked for: A spiky ball, heavy enough to be swung around. The ball was supposed to be attachable to a chain. This prop is for a dance  where the dancers swing these around. This is the inspiration picture I was given:
 Morning Star

I Began trying to do it through FreeCad but eventually gave up
FreeCad
So I decided to create it through Blender.
The process consisted of adding cones to a sphere by rotating and scaling them.

Morningstar

Then I ran it through our trusted Bambu printer

These are the results:

All in all it went pretty well although this happened>

morningfail
One of the sharp ends was loose, I fixed it with a hot glue gun by removing the unnecessary strings.

Here is the final result:

Morningstarr


Note: I made it a bit too sharp and it could be dangerous so we are using sandpaper to fix it 

This would be difficult to mill due to the many sides and points but not impossible

Video:

Leikfélag Vestmannaeyja




3D printing something only possible through additive manufacturing

So the Morningstar may be possible through multi axes milling. But this print on the otherhand is not possible through such methods.
I began by creating a box through blender, used loop cut to split each side into multiple parts and finally used the S command to resize the middle parts.

Box s
Then I used the wireframe toolpath

wireframe
After that I changed the thickness and inserted a small sphere into the box.
adding sphere
Box trap
Unfortunately due to the angle it  produced too many strings so I had to redesign it
Boxresult

3D printing something only possible through additive manufacturing final part

I began by just creating a simple sphere, then proceeded to use the wireframe tool and placed a smaller sphere within it.

Icoblend
At first it seemed that using supports was a waste and unessecary but after a few failed tests where the sphere began moving around too much I realised using supports might be a good idea.

Ico
Printing..

in printer
Result:
Hero
grey
note:the ball moves around if you shake it!



3D scanning-part 0: the equipment

  • So for 3D scanning we use the Einstar 3D Scanner, made by SHINING 3D.
  • User manual

Einstar


3D SCANNING PART 1:

I began by 3D scanning a puffin. More pics and info coming soon.
Puffin1

Okay so here is something I learned

  1. its better to keep the brightness low, try to keep the red colour at a minumum (preferably no red)
  2. Make sure that the object is green and that the camera does not loose sight of the object, If it does you can simply slowly move the scanner back until it regonizes the object
  3. DO NOT MOVE TOO FAST
2Puffin2

Here is how the first scan turned out:

puffun3
Next I optimized and generated Point Clouds
I then opened project group and started a new scan, where the puffin was laid on its side.
I used cutting tool to remove the styrofoam cube underneath it
PUFFIN cutting
              plane

It ended up looking like this:  (these are two seperate scans)
Puffin align
I then
Aligning

I will use this 3d scan for one of the props that the theater needs for a scene
Used this scan in Computer controlled machining week



3d scanning-PART 2: tHE TRIAL AND ERROR


So I wanted to scan a person for this week, I called up one of my friends up to the lab and we got to work! I wanted to start experimenting on him before bringing in the actor I was asked to scan!

He gracefully accepted and I´m glad he did since we have tried to scan him on multiple occasions over the years but it never succeeded.

The first scan was a failure since we didnt put ENOUGH STICKERS. Seriously look at this he looks like an eldritch being!

  It's okay though because we brought him in to ✨learn✨                                                                         
Failed scab

So the first thing we did for the second scan was to put a bunch of stickers all over him AND I MEAN ALL OVER! We put little yellow and purple stickers in his hair, on his neck and shoulders. This allowed us to make it easier for the scanner to be able to recognize  him from all sides.

Here is the second look:
scan2   doge
So then I pressed this button
Generatecloudpoints
And then I generated the mesh with this button!

meshMesh2
Next I went to the post Processing tab and began messing with the settings:

Postprocess
The cutting plane is so useful! It can be used to remove big parts of the mesh by simply drawing a line by using Shift and the Left Mouse Button

cuttingplane

After I felt satisfied with it I exported the file as an stl and opened it through Bambu and resized it
Bambu_Breki
SlicedSliced2


Final result:

Breki

Overall it went pretty well, the stickers are definitely a very influential factor in the scanning process!
Very cool!

3D SCANNING PART 3: THE KING

The previous 3d scan was only a matter of trial and error. The true testing of my abilities was yet to begin. I received a task from the director of Spamalot, the task was to 3d scan the king.

First step was to open the application and select portrait mode.

king1
It went pretty well and after around 1 hour we had this;:
King
King4
I use the lasso tool to select and delete unwanted points and parts.

lasso
I then turned it into a mesh like in the previous scan AND VOILA !
king6

There was a slight problem with the crown since it was way too shiny, the scanner would not recognize the crowns features

Crown
Going to try scanning the crown with powder to see how that goes

king
Final result:
Arthur


Reflection on this week:
3D printing and scanning has gone a long way in the past few years and it is incredible to see how far technology has come. I have tried many times to 3D scan my friend like I did for this week but back in the day I used a camera and tried assembling a lot of pictures together into a mesh. Now our lab has a scanner specifically for the purpose of.. yeah you guessed it... SCANNING! 3D printing has a lot of potential  although it does come with limitations. One constraint for example is the speed, for example I had to 3D print quite a few statues of the king to be handed as the "Arthur awards". Making the statue 3D felt like a fun way of presenting the award but due to the limits of the 3D printer, each one took hours and in some cases it was more speed efficient to just make something with the laser cutter. 3D printing is fun and can be used for all sorts of stuff but it takes time and its not the best method when you have to make something 3 hours before a show.


Software


Files for printing

Funky box
Box stl
Box MF
IcoSphere
Icosphere STL
Icosphere MF