Saturday 22 March 2014

Arch

Pinterest continues to be a great source of inspiration for my 3D printed nude figurines. The latest photo I found was this one, which, according to Google image search, was originally taken by L M Hughes.




It's a fantastic pose and a great challenge for a 3D printer.
I set up the pose using my favourite software and then went through the cleaning process, which is now getting quicker as the routine becomes more established. These are the steps I now go through:

  • Export the model as an OBJ file keeping the body and hair as separate objects
  • Import the model into Blender - the hair and body should be separately selectable 
  • Hide the hair temporarily
  • Select the body and go into point edit mode
  • Pick any vertex and then use Ctrl-L to select all linked vertices. Now press H to hide these points. This is a really easy way to identify any internal components
  • Select all of the eyelashes,teeth, gums and tongue and delete them
  • Keep the front of the eyes but delete the iris, lens and non-visible parts.
  • Use Alt-H to un-hide any hidden vertices
  • From the side view, select all the points in the bottom 1-2 mm of the model and scale to zero on the Z axis - this makes a flat base for the model
  • Now in object mode, hide the body and un-hide the hair
  • Add a high density icosphere mesh so that it surrounds the hair
  • Shrink-wrap the sphere around the hair target using the negative projection setting so that all the points move towards the centre until they meet the hair surface
  • Now delete the hair object and keep the sphere which has taken on the shape of the hair, but in a single closed mesh
  • Un-hide the body and save the body and hair together as an STL file
  • Open the STL file in Cura
  • In the Expert settings, use FixHorrible-Type B - this removes any internal holes and prints much more reliably
  • Turn on the default support settings
  • Use Z-lift on retract to stop the nozzle from catching on edges as it travels from area to area
  • I printed at 0.15 mm resolution with some fairly aggressive cooling from a new fan mounted on the hot-end

Here is the printed model with the support structure still attached.




And here it is with the support removed.



Even the top of the foot came out well thanks to some fairly aggressive cooling.






1 comment:

  1. Could you do a video tutorial of the blender side of things?

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