![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In order to create a "face" representing the figure, I use the "Beauty Fill" by pressing "Alt+F" or by selecting the Mesh→Faces→Beauty Fill menu option in edit mode (I enter and leave edit mode by hitting the "Tab" key). To do this, I either type "Alt+C" or choose "Change Object Type." from the "Object" menu.Īfter conversion, though, I only have vertices with edges connecting them. So, after importing the curves from the original SVG files, I had to convert them into meshes. The more common type of object is a "mesh" and that's what you need for 3D printing. Figure 3: I imported the SVG objects into Blender as curvesĬurves are special objects in Blender, and there are a lot of limitations on how they can be used. It's necessary to stretch them to the right size: At 1:100 scale, each real meter is a centimeter and so I opted to use the convention that 1 Blender Unit (BU) would be 1 cm. There were eight main characters, plus two more "extras" I wanted to create to represent the occasional walk-on parts. I imported each of these SVG outlines into Blender as curves (Figure 3). Figure 2: I first copied the SVG silhouette drawings into separate drawings and saved those in "Plain SVG" format I saved these as "plain SVG" for maximum portability. To create the figure models, I started by selecting each of the characters from my original Inkscape drawing, and pasting them into separate SVG documents (Figure 2). For the present project, though, the silhouettes will be just fine - I'm going to make the markers as simple cut-outs on a round base, not unlike toy soldiers or the game piece figures from "Clue" (though at 1:100 scale, these figures will be a little smaller than either). I've avoided going any further with the character design, because I don't want to be too biased when I commission designs from an artist. They started out as public domain generic architectural scale figures, but I tweaked them so much that they started to really show the personality of the characters. I created the original silhouettes as stand-in art for Lunatics very early on. One reason for this was that I've had some difficulty in consistently imagining this vehicle, and it seemed like it would be useful to try to externalize it, both as a 3D model in the computer and as a physical model to hold and look at. This figures fairly prominently in the story, where a number of important hardware elements are intended to be LTS components or spin-offs and discards from the LTS program. It's also a part of the "Lunar Transportation System" (LTS) which I conceived of as a sort of mid-century equivalent to today's (soon to be yesterday's) "Space Transportation System" (STS), colloquially known as the "Space Shuttle". I decided to start with the "Moon Truck" - a pressurized lunar rover vehicle designed for carrying cargo and passengers. To the same scale (namely 1:100), I also wanted to create some of the vehicles. We could co-opt some "Clue" pieces or use color-coded Chess pawns or Parcheesi pieces, but it'd be much cooler if we had pieces that actually looked a bit like our characters - even if we only have the silhouette designs I made myself so far. And like a game board, we'd like to have "pieces" representing our characters. This is mostly an affair of foam-core with printed floor plans - a bit like a game board. So we're going to build a model of the lunar colony in which most of the action takes place. I love working on computers, but sometimes you want to have something to hold and manipulate with your hands when you're trying to block out scenes or plan scripts. The secondary reason is that we'd like to have something a little more tangible for planning Lunatics. Figure 1: Designed in Blender, exported and uploaded to Shapeways, delivered as 3D printed plastic models - Is this cool, or what? They also provide a wide variety of printing materials, including fused ceramics, metals, and plastics. It's a very easy-to-use service, and the printing services are apparently of very high quality. Shapeways has combined 3D printing services with an online community design that makes for a vibrant and fun environment for creating and ordering models, driven by the community they've created. The main reason for doing this project is simply that I wanted to test out the capabilities of the 3D printing services provided by Shapeways. In this column, I'm going to walk through the complete process, from creating 3D models to receiving the final product in the mail. I've written about this before for Free Software Magazine, but this month I finally got to try the technology out for myself - in order to create "study models" (a fancy name for "toys") for my video project, Lunatics. One of the most exciting technological trends in recent years has been the rise of "3D printing" technologies for rapid prototyping of arbitrary shapes.
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