3D Printing and Fabrication

One of the biggest advances in recent years has been the democratization of 3D fabrication through consumer grade technologies like 3D printers, CNC routers and mills, and laser cutters. These tools allow digital 3D models that were previously only viewable through the imperfect 2D interface of a monitor screen or a 3D Virtual Reality headset to be brought into physical reality fairly easily and cheaply.

Svitlana Lozova [CC BY-SA]

Plastic Buildings and Wooden Maps

In this class, we are going to explore 3D fabrication by taking advantage of our brand new Makerspace in Anderson Hall, and the expert guidance of its manager, Aaron Heidgerken-Greene.

We will continue our class project of making a hybrid digital/physical map of Carleton’s Campus by fabricating the following steps:

  • Choosing a building as yours
  • Researching the building in the archives to find images and historical information about it
  • Building a collective website on the buildings’ history
  • Making a digital map of campus
  • Refining a 3D model of your building
  • 3D printing a physical version of the digital model
  • Laser cutting a physical version of the digital map
  • Putting it all together by placing the building models on the map and linking them to the online information

Processing a 3D model for printing

In order to print successfully a 3D model needs to be:

  • Watertight (i.e. have no holes)
  • Non-zero width (i.e. cannot be a true 2D plane)
  • Oriented correctly (i.e. cannot have “reversed faces”)

There are many ways to clean an STL file, which is the preferred format for 3D printing, that range from free software to very expensive licensed options through Autodesk and other companies.

We will use one of the easiest free options to quickly get a clean model for printing: the online Netfabb service at https://service.netfabb.com

Netfabb online service, now owned by Autodesk
  • Log into SketchUp and Export your model as an STL file
  • Go to the Netfabb service, and log in with Autodesk
    • You will need to create an Autodesk account. Do so with your college email address, since you can get free access to many of their desktop applications through our site license and their educational plans.
  • Upload your model, e.g. ArenaConcertHall.stl
  • Download the cleaned model, e.g. ArenaConcertHall_fixed.stl
  • Check the Carleton Campus Buildings spreadsheet to see the type of your building
    • Academic
    • Residential
    • Other
  • Put the cleaned STL file in the appropriate folder within our shared Google Drive 3D_Printing folder

Once we have all of the files there we will go to the MakerSpace to load them onto the printer and print them in 3 different plastics to indicate type.

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