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Difficulty: Noob
Objective: If you have never used Blender before and want to know where to start learning how to, this video was made just for you. It was inspired by Tunapanda, whom I will give a shout-out to, and you can find more information about them here: http://www.tunapanda.org.

    Noob

    These are the video tutorials to learn blender (in recommended order). If there is no link, then that means the video will be uploaded in the near future.


    Intro, Dive In:

    Object Mode:

    Edit Mode:

    1. Selection
    2. Scale, Rotate, and Move
    3. Proportional Editing
    4. Extrude, Delete vs. Dissolve, Merge, & Fill
    5. Join, Separate, and Split Parts (Knife Tool)
    6. Edge Loop
    7. Mirror
    8. 3D Printing Checks
    9. Creating an arm
    10. Curve Modifiers
    11. Grid Fill

    Sculpt Mode:

    1. Brushes
    2. Symmetry
    3. Background Image

    3D Printing:

    1. 3D Printing Tool-box
    2. Measuring

    Rendering:

    1. Camera
    2. Lighting
    3. Materials
    4. Textures
    5. Compositor

    Animation:

    1. Simple Animation
    2. Rigging
    3. Collisions
    4. Cloth
    5. Liquid
    6. Smoke

    Intermediate

    1. Retopologize
    2. Curves
    3. Arrays

    Advanced

    1. To be Announced

    Additional Materials

    You can download the curriculum and hotkeys for Blender online here: 

    Other Useful Tutorials


    Please leave your comments.

    and as always thanks for visiting,
    The 3D Printing Ninja

    3DNinjaneer@gmail.com




    Difficulty: Noob
    Objective: Although there are many different CAD programs, they each are very similar to one another. To get started with any CAD software, these are all the tools I would learn.  

    Sketch

    Everything starts from a sketch. From a sketch you can use various tools to make a 3D model. To make a sketch you first need a plane or face to sketch onto. The you can use various methods such as line, spline, circle, etc. to draw a sketch. Make sure your sketch is enclosed, otherwise it will fail. You should always dimension your sketches to be fully constrained, it will save you frustration later on, trust me. 


    Dimensions

    If you ignore dimensions, then I don't know why you are even using a CAD program. Being able to add dimensions onto your sketch and model is the best thing to get in a good habit of.

    What is fully constrained?

    I always say you can test a sketch to see if it is fully constrained by wiggling all of the elements. If anything moves than that part needs a dimension to constrain the model. Basically dimensions limit what the sketch can do. You add dimensions on your sketch until your sketch is static and can't move anywhere. This also will save you frustration later down when tools fail. The best habit to get into right out of gate with these programs is a fully constrained sketch every time.


    Extrude

    The basic of basic tools is an extrude, which takes your sketch and moves it straight to make a 3D object. It's the same as a sweep with a straight path. This is probably the most common tool. 


    Note: For most tools you can choose to add or subtract. So you can add the extrude to the object or subtract the extrude to the object as seen below:

    Revolve

    This requires a sketch and an axis to rotate the sketch around. This would be like a sweep but with a circle path. Between extrudes and revolves alone, mostly things can be made. 


    Sweep

    I will start with the sweep because I think if you understand this tool then you can understand the others easier. A sweep is what I call the "snake tool" and requires a sketch and a path. The sketch then will follow the path, creating a 3D object. For example: sketch=circle and a path will make a tube like shape. 


    Loft

    When I think of loft, I think of an airplane wing. This tool takes multiple sketches and blends them together. So if the first sketch is a circle and the second is a star, this will create a 3 model that starts of looking like a cylinder and then gradually changes into a star shape. 


    Chamfer / Fillet

    I think of this tool as softening the edges so they aren't so sharp. These not only make you model look good, but they are also make your model more comfortable a safe. And it also makes your model stronger as stresses tend to love to gather in sharp edges. 

    Shell

    Think hollow. For 3D printing, the default on your printer automatically shells your object to save on material. But you can always change to setting to print solid, or the thickness to how you shelled your model. 


    Split

    When it comes to 3D printing and you only use PLA or ABS, this tool will be your best friend. You can print models that would need supports without any by printing your model in parts and then connecting the parts afterwards. I do this all the time and highly suggest it, to avoid supports. 





    For more information you can download my powerpoints under "Classroom Powerpoints"
    http://guides.lib.byu.edu/content.php?pid=529916&sid=4360174

    Please leave a comment.
    And as always, thanks for visiting.
    3D Printing Ninja
    3DNinjaneer@gmail.com





    Difficulty: Noob
    Objective: The gcode is the easiest and most accurate way to predict how your part will print. Learn how to make gcodes, inspect them, and make them be one of your best 3D Printing Friends.



    Just like google maps creates a path for a person to follow, a slicer software also creates a path to be printed upon. This is essentially what a gcode is. It tells the printer where to move, how fast to move, layer by by layer. The g-code is the most accurate prediction of what will be printed. 

    Creating a gcode

    There are many options for a software to slice your model to be printed, such as Slic3r, Cura, or as I am using in the pictures, Makerware. These programs are free to download and take your model and convert it into a file that can be printed. To create the gcode of your file, import your model and export it as a gcode.

    Inspecting the gcode

    Next we take our gcode file that we just created and import it into a gcode viewer. There are multiple viewers, however I enjoy the free online viewer found at: gcode.ws 
    Drag and drop your newly created gcode file into the site. Loading bars should appear.
    This is what it looks like:



    3D Mode

    Will display a 3D model constructed of the paths of each layer. It looks a little odd at first, but you'll get used to it soon. The most important thing is to rotate and zoom to get every angle so that you can spot the errors. Below are examples of what you are trying to spot.

    Giant Holes / Missing Layers

    This is the most common problem that you can see usually due to non-manifolds. Rotate your model until you see something as shown in the picture below. This means that nothing will be printing where the missing material is lacking. So don't print the file because it will look exactly like this.


    Random Extra Material

    This is rare and usually has little effect on the print and I have no idea what causes this. My best advice is to reorient the model and pick the least of the worst reoriented gcodes. Luckily most of the extra material is on the outside and can be broken off after printing. 

    Inner Material

    Usually this is due to the software you used to make the gcode will want to add automatic supports inside the model.



    Odd object

    Some objects usually small or thin often have a hard time generating a good gcode. Here was a project that I was working on for a Math student. As seen below most there were obvious errors that were going to happen. 

    One way to fix this is to change the orientation of the model before you create the gcode. For example try rotating it 45 degrees about the x axis, try flipping it upside down, etc. Try a few orientations and then pick the best one.


    2D Mode

    This mode lets you look at each individual layer and the path the printer will take. You can also check the speeds of each layer, and if need be change the speed in advanced settings when you print it.

    Also you may find it useful to look into the "2D Render Options" on the right hand side to make the view more clear.

    Odd Layer

    When a person mows a lawn they usually follow a pattern or some logic order. But imagine a person who decides to mow the lawn with a random pattern. This happens in 3D printing and to me it is hilarious and annoying. I just want to ask the software if they are drunk or on drugs because the path is so bad. 


    This happens most often at the first and last layers. In the picture shown below, you can see how the rough layer on the feet and between the legs of this cougar. It would look identical in the gcode 2D view.

    Gcodes do take a little more time, but in my opinion are worth it so that you do waste time and material printing something that you could have know would have not printed out well.


    Please leave a comment.
    And as always, thanks for visiting,
    3D Printing Ninja
    3DNinjaneer@gmail.com




    Difficulty: Intermediate


    Overview: If are trying to edit a model made in a CAD program (CAD in the sense of being an engineering 3D modeling software) in another program such as Blender and have found that the model has horrible topology, this post is for you.


    What is an .stl?



    3D printing can take a file in a few formats, the most common format being an .stl. This is the typical format that all programs will export a file as in order to be 3D printed. Imagine it like a .pdf format. A file that everyone can access, but is a pain in the butt to edit and modify. If you designed your file with good topology then you won’t have a problem. If you don’t know what good topology is then you most likely used a CAD program. And there are two reasons why I hate when CAD programs export a file as an .stl.

    Problems With CAD to STL Conversion

    The conversion is almost always horrible. The geometry is often crazy and the model is changed in the conversion. For example a smooth edge gets changed so that multiple edges make a smooth edge.

    If you wanted a smooth edge you will have to manually correct the conversion by adding more geometry. Furthermore the conversion creates a non-uniform mesh. One face of the mesh might be 1000 times larger than another face. Triangles, squares, and polygons appear. The non-uniform geometry makes it almost impossible to edit and deform.

    Basically it looks something like this. This is bad because the geometry is not uniform.

    How to make a better stl conversion? (Via Blender )

    Basically our goals in doing this are:

    • Make the geometry uniform
    • Keep our geometry count low
    • Keep the original Shape (note that the shape may slightly alter)
    As you can see there is little changes to the cars below. We want to find a point where our geometry is low, but we still have a good shape. And as


    1.) Remesh Modifier

    This is probably the easiest for people with little blender experience, however it often creates an excessive amount of faces. If you are wanting to add something with fine detail such as a texture the excessive geometry will most likely be needed. This can be done with the DEFORM MODIFIER. The following are the most important aspect of the tool.

    Sharp / Smooth / Blocks

    If the model has a sharp edge use sharp. If it doesn’t then use smooth. Or if you want like an 8-bit looking thing use blocks.

    Octree

    This is similar to subdivide, the higher the number the better the result, but the slower the program will run.

    Then you will get something better like this. This has more uniform geometry but perhaps overkill. If your computer can handle this, then it is okay to stop here. Otherwise see the next steps.

    2.) Decimate or MeshLab

    If your model is simple enough you can use blender's decimate modifier to reduce the geometry. and get something like this. Which is far from ideal, however somewhat better that when we started. 

    However the better option is to export your remeshed model into a program called Meshlab that can handle the decimation better. Under Flilters -->Meshing, Simplification, and Reconstruction you can apply filters such as Surface Reconstruction Poisson, Quadratic Edge Collapse, Uniform mesh resampling, tri to quad, etc. until you are happy with your results. And you will get something like this:

    From here you can work easily with your model. Not that the model will change

    OR...

    Manually

    Depending on how bad the conversion is and what you want to modify you may be able to simply change the model by rearranging the geometry and using the KNIFE TOOL to add more geometry. Depending on the situation this can be the easiest method as the other methods often may not work without a lot of geometry.

    However there is a more time consuming way called Retopology. Here is a good video on how to do this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icqPZnD_3lA

    Shrink Wrap Modifier

    This tool takes the geometry of one mesh and then places it in the for of the second mesh. This method is fairly simply however it seems to work on simple shapes and not well on more complex shapes.

    Can you convert from an stl to a CAD format?

    Now if you try to go the other way, from an .stl to a CAD format such as an .iges, it is impossible. I have searched a great many hours for a program that can convert an .stl into a format that can be used in a CAD program and all I have found is dead ends. If you find something that can and you have personally done it, please inform me.

    The reason why you would want to do this is because most files downloaded from the internet are in stl format. If I wanted to add something of a specific size such as screw holes, it would be easiest in a CAD program. A person could then take any model and easily design it.

    Please leave a comment.
    And as always, thanks for visiting
    3D Printing Ninja
    3DNinjaneer@gmail.com




    Difficulty: Noob

    Objective: If you are just starting to use Blender, menus such as this one probably seem quite intimidating. If I were you I would just ignore most all of these for now. And the modifiers that you should focus on learning are these:



    To learn Blender see this post: Blender Curriculum: Tutorial Videos

    Multiresolution/Subdivide Surface


    First of all I don't know why there is a Subdivide Surface modifier when it does the same thing that the Multiresolution modifier does. But I listed it anyways however I would just always use the Multiresolution modifier, In fact, I don't know if I can recall a time I was using blender and didn't use this modifier.  It's a beautiful feature that allows you to do to different levels of subdivisions. Even more so it gives you options of what level to subdivide in the display (Preview) in sculpting (Sculpt). I don't apply this modifier until the nearly the end (as you should for many modifiers) and its powerful to be able to constantly switch levels of subdivisions to work with. So for a square 

    Array



    Think of an array as copy and pasting your object, only with control of how many times to paste and where to paste. Any scene with repeated elements such as a fence or leaves on a plant are perfect to use an array on. 

    Mirror


    One part of art that makes things look beautiful is symmetry. With computer modeling you can mirror your object to make it perfectly symmetrical.  Not only does this look great but it also saves you half the time because you only have to do one side. Keep in mind that you can mirror over any line, so you can make complex patterns easily. 

    Curve


    Let's say that you have a straight road that you want to go on a hill. With the curve modifier you can command a 3d object to move onto a curve. 

    Displace


    If you want to put a texture on a model this is the modifier to use. First you will have to subdivide your model into really small faces to get the detail. So this should probably always be the last modifier to use. Then you can add an image that will repeat itself to texturizing your object. It can be really neat. I texturized my phone case i 3D printed to give it more grip because smooth PLA is quite slick. 

    Remesh


    This is a great way to import a CAD model and then add a texture as mentioned above. Remesh modifier takes your model and tries to redo the geometry, to retopologize it. Most likely it will not be the best geometry and it's better to manually retopologize, but it can be useful if you just want to do something like texturize it.

    See this post for more details: Remesh Tool

    Boolean


    Think of this modifier as a way to join 2 objects together. You can combine them, intersect them so only what intersects remains, or cut out of one object where they intersect. Although I will warn you that this leave really funky bad geometry that may need work. But overall this is a very easy way to combine to objects.

    See this post for more detail: Boolean Trouble

    Please leave your comments.

    and as always thanks for visiting,
    The 3D Printing Ninja
    3DNinjaneer@gmail.com