There are unlimited applications of 3D printing for profit, and here are just are six ways to make money with Shapeways’ 3D printing services.

1) Prototype and Research New Ideas

Shapeways makes it easy to cheaply print many different designs as you test out new ideas. For example, if you’re designing a piece of jewelry you won’t have to create multiple, expensive molds on your own. The Shapeways market also makes it easy to test multiple ideas at once without a big investment. Use it to find out which materials, designs, and sizes people prefer before you go all in on the one that works best.

2) Create Promotional Swag for Your Brand

You can use Shapeways to 3D print custom mugs, bottle openers, and more to promote your company. It’s a great option if you want a little something extra for an upcoming event — or you just need some swag for potential new clients.

3) Take Advantage of Popular Trends

Shapeways’ quick turnaround makes it possible to sell products based on the latest trends. Shapeways even has a partnership with gaming giant Valve, which shows the strength of popular communities. Try making 3D printed objects inspired by movies and video games!

4) Print Unique Parts or Features

If your business relies on complex machinery, you already know that things can break down from time to time. When that happens, these machines often require specific (and expensive) parts to start working again. Next time, save your money and use our super-accurate 3D printers to make the parts you need.

5) Quickly Customize Your Product

No two customers are alike, and making everyone happy means staying flexible. Shapeways makes it easy to meet everyone’s different demands by printing in different materials, colors, and sizes to match each customer’s distinct style. Customization is king to the customer!

CASH IN ON THAT INSPIRATION

or

NEED HELP FOR YOUR BUSINESS? GET IN TOUCH 

The post 5 Ways to Make Money with 3D Printing appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

1. Make Sure You’re Using the Right File

For this article let’s take a look at a file from Thingiverse user iomaa who creates several handy little pieces including an incredibly useful USB, SD, and Micro SD combination card holder:

The first step for a successful design upload to Shapeways is making sure that the file has satisfied Shapeways’ uploading guidelines. This little guy is an .STL file, which Shapeways supports, and is clocked in at a petite 3.9 MB, well under the limit of 64MB or 1 million polygons.

2. All in all, are the Walls too Thin?

This one is very important. Walls in your 3D model that aren’t thick enough to survive the printing process results in a subpar product for you and for us. When you’re looking at which material you want to use, always make sure the smallest walls are within that material’s minimum requirements.

Also, if you decide to print in another material, make sure you adjust your model accordingly, since not all of our materials have the same minimum wall thicknesses. For instance, our Strong and Flexible line of plastics have .7mm as the minimum thickness for either a supported or unsupported wall, while the Frosted Ultra Detail has a .3mm minimum for a supported wall, or .6mm for an unsupported one. When you upload a 3D file, these guidelines are shown in the “Wall Thickness” tab of your Material Overview.

Little numbers, important details!

3. Let Us Fix the Problem for You!

When we uploaded the multi-card holder, we did come across some problems in our file. It seemed a few sections had walls that were too thin; however, they were only in one section, because this is where the USB ports would be placed:

Oh, that looks thin…

The button “Fix Thin Walls” will take care of the problems that you might be having with them. Because the only problems that were on this model were the USB ports lived, clicking “Fix Thin Walls” didn’t lead to much of a difference:

But it’s probably not that bad.

I decided to let it be, since I know that if there was a serious problem with printing the piece, the button would have been much more noticeable. We don’t doubt that if your file ends up having larger problems, you might need to fix it yourself, but for someone who’s just starting, this is button is a huge help.

4. Don’t be Afraid to Scale Up!

Some customers try to print a model that is too small and intricate for us to print. For that, if you don’t want to scale it up yourself, we have our own resizing tool. It’s hard to miss: just look under the “File” section of your Edit Model page:

Click “Resize,” and you’re off to the races.

It can scale in millimeters, centimeters, meters, or inches, so make sure you’re using the right scale before you put the new numbers in.

Try it Today!

We’re always trying to make things easier for you when you work with us, and we’ve come a long way. Hopefully these couple tips can help you save time and headache when you’re trying to bring a new product to market, or just print something for yourself. If you have any other thoughts or ideas for making the process smoother, feel free to share it with us. If not, why not try uploading something for yourself? We’ve got a bunch of materials for you to play with. Happy printing!

UPLOAD MY MODEL

The post Print Like a Pro: 4 Things to Know When Uploading to Shapeways appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

You can find plenty of ways to iterate on your design right on the Shapeways website, from cheaper test materials to community feedback. Beyond that, there are countless free (or cheap) online tools to help you get the job done. If you need some help, here are seven ways to take your design from prototype to perfection:

1. Use Cheaper Materials to Test Your Design

Shapeways offers high-end materials to make your products shine, but while you’re testing and tweaking your design there’s no need to spend a ton of money to 3D print each prototype. Instead, use a cheaper material to iterate. For example, use Versatile Plastic to test a steel product, or test your jewelry design with Fine Detail Plastic.

print the next iteration

2. Lower the Final Price By Adding Empty Space

If you’re worried your final product will be too expensive to sell or produce, there’s an easy way to lower the price without sacrificing your vision. Just try creating some empty space by hollowing out your design or expanding existing openings. Who knows? You may even prefer this new iteration.

3. Create Small-Scale Test Prints

Here’s another trick if you’re worried about spending too much money while iterating: shrink down your product to test out different ideas for cheap. Shapeways even offers easy-to-use tools for scaling down the size of your design. Just be careful not to make it too small or it might be too difficult to print accurately.

try it yourself

4. Use Design with Shapeways for design help

Along with manufacturing amazing products, Shapeways also offers a thriving community of 3D designers who can help bring your vision to life. So if you’re having trouble perfecting your design, head to Design with Shapeways and submit your request

5. Use CAD Software to Quickly Test Out New Designs

If you need to test out a bunch of a different ideas quickly, CAD (computer aided design/drafting) is your best friend. These software programs take 2D drawings and turn them into 3D designs. They’re especially great for making mechanical parts that need to fit an exact shape to work. If you’re looking for CAD software that works with Shapeways, try Fusion 360 (free for students, startups, and makers) or Tinkercad (also free, and great for beginners).

print a new design

6. Use 3D Modeling Software to Fine-Tune Your Creation

Once you have a basic 3D design, 3D modeling software will give you the tools to iterate on the final product, offering direct control that’s great for more artistic ideas. Shapeways supports a ton of different file formats and works with free apps like SketchUp and Blender.

Blender

7. Make a Mood Board on Pinterest

Finally, if you’re searching for inspiration, try using Pinterest to collect images and ideas that inspire you. Any time you see a piece of jewelry, home decor, or even images from nature, you can quickly save it on Pinterest. Then, when you need a new idea you’ll already have a wealth of inspiration right at your fingertips as you iterate on your latest product.

Let Us Help

Get in touch to discuss how we can help you prototype faster and easier with 3D printing.

*Updated by Shapeways on 7/11/2018

The post 7 Tips, Tricks, and Tools to Iterate Your Product to Perfection appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Welcome to Tutorial Tuesday! This week we’ll discuss three methods for modifying 3D meshes with the free software MeshLab. When you export a 3D file to STL format, what you’re doing is creating a file that describes the surface of an object with a mesh of tiny triangles. Sometimes there are problems with that mesh that cause printability issues, and MeshLab can help you fix most of those issues to make your files ready for printing.

We’ll focus on the top three issues that can arise with meshes: having too many triangles (too fine a mesh), having triangles that are oriented incorrectly or inconsistently, and having triangles that intersect with bad geometry. MeshLab has a dizzying array of menu items with long names, but if you know just which ones to choose then you can repair these three types of issues very quickly. Let us know in the comments if you have other mesh-repair techniques to share!

Reducing Triangle Count

Shapeways can accept 3D models with up to one million triangles, but it’s surprisingly easy to go over that threshold, especially if you’re working with 3D scans or a sculpting program. To reduce the overall number of triangles in your model, open the model in MeshLab and from the Filters menu select “Remeshing, Simplification, and Reconstruction” and then “Simplification: Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation.” For more detailed information, see the Shapeways Tutorial Polygon Reduction with MeshLab as well as Mister P.’s video Mesh Processing: Decimation.

P. S. to MeshLab veterans: Good news! MeshLab updated to a long-awaited new version in late 2016, and in the new version you can perform “QECD” multiple times in a row without crashing the program! There’s still no “undo” in MeshLab though, alas. :/

Orienting Normals

If some of your model appears “inside out” (like the black area in the image below), then you should select and flip any reversed normals using the method outlined in the recipe Using MeshLab for fixing normals in the 3D Printing with RepRap Cookbook.

Or, try a quick overall fix in MeshLab by selecting “Normals, Curvature, and Orientation” from the Filters menu, then choosing the “Re-orient all faces coherently” tool.

Removing Non-Manifold Edges

If the mesh of your model has faces that meet together in geometrically unpleasant ways, then you’ll need to repair it before 3D printing; see the Shapeways article Fixing Non-Manifold Models. “Non-manifold” edges and vertices look those like the ones shown below from Martin Sälzle at PCL Developer’s Blog.

You can identify and select non-manifold elements from the Filter/Selection menu in MeshLab; look at the bottom of the view window for a count of the number of bad faces. To repair any bad geometry, use the method from the MakerHome article Shrinking and Remeshing the Fidget Cube: from the Filters menu, choose “Cleaning and Repairing”, and then try some combination of the tools “Remove Duplicate Faces”, “Remove Duplicated Vertex”, “Remove Faces From Non Manifold Edges”, and/or “Remove T-Vertices by Edge Flip”.

What are your favorite fast fixes for repairing and simplifying meshes? Let us know in the comments so we can all learn how to handle mesh problems quickly and get back to designing and creating!

The post The Best of Tutorial Tuesday: Quick Fixes With MeshLab appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

This week, Tutorial Tuesday is for beginners. If you’ve never designed a 3D model before, then this post will show you how to get started. We’ll start with showing you how to design simple 3D models with a free program called Tinkercad, and then how to send those models to Shapeways for 3D printing. It’s easier than you might think! Get a cup of coffee and join us. You’ll have designed and ordered your first 3D design before you’re done with your coffee.

First steps

If you’re completely new to 3D printing, then one of the best ways to get started is with Tinkercad, a free 3D modeling program that runs right in your web browser. The Tinkercad user interface is extremely intuitive — just drag, drop, modify, and combine 3D shapes to create a 3D design which can be exported for 3D printing. To use Tinkercad, you’ll have to set up an Autodesk account, which is free and only takes a minute. Go to www.tinkercad.com and sign up now before reading any further, so you can play along.

OK, let’s get started!

When you log into Tinkercad for the first time, you’ll start inside the Learning the Moves Tinkercad Lesson, which teaches you how to navigate around and move 3D objects. If you’re an absolute beginner, we recommend working through this and other Tinkercad Lessons to learn the basics. Click on the step arrows in the upper left for instructions within each Lesson, and to move ahead to the next Lesson.

There are a LOT of Tinkercad Lessons, and some of them are more technical than others. Don’t feel like you have to complete them all right now. When you’re ready to exit the lessons and make your own design, click on the multicolored Tinkercad logo to go to your main Designs page, and click on “Create New Design.”

Designing a Model

To jump in right away, simply drag objects from the right sidebar in Tinkercad onto the blue Workplane, then use the “handle dots” on your objects to change their size or shape. For detailed instructions and tips on how to do this, watch Tinkercad’s beginner-friendly video Introduction to Tinkercad Beta.

Tinkercad switched to a new ground-up redeveloped Beta version last year, and there are lots of new features that make designing in Tinkercad even easier than it was before. If you’re already a Tinkercad pro and just want to know what’s different in the new Beta that came out this year, check out the Tinkercad video Updates: TinkerTour and Tinkercad Beta or the Tinkercad Beta Participant Guide. If you’re completely new to Tinkercad, the video Tinkercad Beta – New Features: Shape Controls is a good place to get started learning about the powerful new Beta features.

For a comprehensive one-stop-shop introduction to Tinkercad, including beginner and intermediate videos, links to 3D models and projects made with Tinkercad, check out the Tinkercad Jumpstart resource page on Thingiverse.  While you’re there, be sure to learn about the key Tinkercad tools Align, Ruler, Workplane, Group, and Hole — they are the secret to creating interesting Tinkercad designs.

Tinkercad models on Shapeways

Tinkercad seems like a simple program, and it is, but you can still use it to make beautiful 3D models. Here are three products on Shapeways that were made with Tinkercad: on the left, a metal Shapeways Keychain made by Shapeways user The Void; in the middle, a simple but elegant Y Ring made by moyer; and on the right, a practical Hario Skerton Coffee Grinder Bottom Bracket made by erin.io.

So, how do you get your Tinkercad models to Shapeways for 3D printing, or even to sell in the marketplace? First, click the Export button in the upper right of your Tinkercad window, then export your model as an .STL file. Then, open a new browser window and navigate to the Shapeways upload page, and click “Upload a 3D model” to get started.

Pay close attention to the size of your model — its size will have a big impact on the cost and printability of your design. Large objects cost more to print, and models with very small design features may not print reliably. You can use the “Ruler” tool in Tinkercad to measure and scale your object before exporting, or, after exporting, use the Scale button on your model’s Shapeways page to change the size of your model. You should be able to order a small physical 3D print of your first Tinkercad model in Strong & Flexible nylon plastic for less than five dollars!

Share your work and join the discussion

We love to hear from you, and we’re here to answer any design/printing questions you have. Want some advice on aligning objects? Exporting to Minecraft? Importing 2D images into your designs? Let us know in the comments.

What’s more, if you make your Tinkercad design public, then you can share it with others. Click on the “list” icon that is third from the left in the top menu bar, then click on the “gear” icon near your design and select “Public.” Then, just copy the URL for your design and share it in the comments below to show off your design.

Better yet, you can easily make your design public on Shapeways so that your friends and fans can order prints of their own. If you’d like to do this, go to your model page on Shapeways and choose “Edit product with this model”, then check “Offer for sale to others” and “Display to the public,” and fill in category and pricing information. Share the URL in the comments, and maybe you’ll get your first customer!

print your 3d model

The post The Best of Tutorial Tuesday: Beginner 3D Design With Tinkercad appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Why create just one design when you can create infinitely many? Instead of designing a ring in just one size, you could use parametric design to control the ring size or the surface pattern, effectively creating many designs within one. Parameters also enable you to create algorithmic, generative designs with amazing complexity.

A good entry point to parametric design is OpenSCAD; you can read more about it in our previous article Tutorial Tuesday 4: Using OpenSCAD to Design With Code. When you’re ready to step into more complex, even organic-looking parametric design, then it’s time to look at Grasshopper. Grasshopper is a plug-in that comes standard with the powerful 3D modeling software Rhino.

To give Grasshopper a try, you must first download a free trial of Rhino for Windows, or download the Work in Progress version of Rhino for Mac. Start up Rhino and type “grasshopper” into the Rhino command line; Grasshopper will open in a window that overlays your Rhino workspace. Creating designs in Grasshopper involves placing visual code elements and connecting them with input/output “wires.” The resulting forms can be modified with parametric sliders and then ultimately “baked” into Rhino when you find a desirable set of parameters.

It looks complicated, but it isn’t as hard as it seems; once you get the hang of it, it is easier than writing text-based code. Here’s what a typical Grasshopper design-in-progress might look like:

Grasshopper screenshot from Seth Moczydlowski

Getting Started with Grasshopper

For first steps, follow through the Grasshopper Getting Started videos by David Rutten. These videos will walk you through creating your first Grasshopper definition, working with sliders, and using the interface effectively.

Once you understand the basics of interacting with Grasshopper, move on to Mode Lab’s fantastic Grasshopper Primer. This primer is a printable online resource that can be used as the basis of a short but powerful first course on Grasshopper. This foundations course covers not only the basics but also more advanced key topics such as data trees, algorithms, and mesh geometry.

For more advanced tips, walthroughs, and examples, head back to the main Grasshopper site to check out their list of video tutorials:

And finally, you can order a printed reference for Grasshopper: Dave Bachman‘s excellent new book Grasshopper: Visual Scripting for Rhinoceros 3D. The first half of this book is a thorough introduction to Grasshopper, including very detailed breakdowns of Grasshopper scripts for key example designs. The second half is an extensive Component Reference, which is handy to flip through to get new ideas or a birds-eye view of available options.

A simple Grasshopper design

So what can you design with Grasshopper? Anything from simple forms to complex algorithmic designs. Let’s start with a very simple example, our own Witness Bracelet from the geekhaus shop:

This bracelet was designed by sketching out the Witness path shape on a flat plane, extruding around that sketch with a tube, then wrapping the resulting form around an elliptical cylinder whose dimensions are determined by parameters that represent wrist width and height. The Grasshopper code for those actions is the mysterious mess of wiring shown below:

Of course, we could have created this simple bracelet in a much simpler, nonparametric way, but using Grasshopper enables us to move sliders to control wrist size measurements, path definition, and other features. This means that the Grasshopper code can create millions of variations on our design, and we decided to print one of them.

Parametric Power

Designers who leverage the power of parametric design don’t create just one model at a time, they create whole families of models with adjustable parameters. For example, consider the stunning Clothoid.A Lamp by Alienology, one beautiful form chosen from a huge array of possible designs created with parametric lofted splines:

Using the same Grasshopper code and modifying certain parameters, Alienology also created this very different Clothoid.B Lamp:

As another example, consider the work done by Responsive Design Studio in Germany. Using Grasshopper, they created a parametric ring design that can be customized to finger size, width, pattern, and other preferences.

Have you been creating parametric designs with Grasshopper or other modeling software? Tell us about it in the comments for a chance to be featured in future Tutorial Tuesday posts.

Or, if you’ve got questions about Grasshopper, leave a comment so that someone in the Shapeways community can help you get started.

The post The Best of Tutorial Tuesday: Create Mind-Blowing Designs With Parametric Modeling in Grasshopper appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Welcome to Tutorial Tuesday! This time we’ll get a little more technical, focusing on some of the more specialized issues that arise when designing, exporting, and printing 3D models. If you’re already a designer or 3D modeler and need technical advice on how to convert and export your designs and animations for 3D printing, then this week is for you.

3D Printing in Full Color

There are lots of options for 3D printing in one color or finish at a time, but just one if you want to print multi-color objects at Shapeways: Full Color Sandstone. The printed colors of your 3D model can be determined by a detailed UV texture map that you upload with your design, or by adding colors to the faces of your design in some 3D modeling programs. With full color printing, you can create some amazing models like those shown above.

Get started printing in full color by reading the step-by-step Shapeways tutorial on Exporting to VRML and X3D for color printing. Full color printing is especially great for printing 3D character models from video games or animations. But not every 3D character design is suitable for 3D printing; what looks good on the screen might have areas that are too thin for printing successfully, or the mesh of the digital model might have problems that affect printability. Not only that, but a digital 3D character model doesn’t have to worry about gravity or balance, but a physical, 3D printed version of that model might not be able to stand up without falling over, due to tiny legs or an awkward pose. Learn how to convert your favorite video game and animation designs into 3D-printable models with the Shapeways tutorial Tips and tricks for character models.

ALL SET? GET PRINTING

Advanced Character Printing

Even if you’re a professional 3D modeler, it can be difficult to convert your digital models into ones that are suitable for 3D printing. Shapeways member BhushanArekar is a ZBrush sculptor who has created many 3D printed full color designs, including this model of Xev from The LEXX:

The following detailed two-part Shapeways tutorials by Laurie Berenhaus will help you turn your intricate characters into real-life printed models: Part 1: How to Prepare your Render/Animation Model for 3D Printing, and Part 2: Adapting your Character or Animation Model for 3D Printing, which includes a video.  If your model has articulated or mechanical parts, then you may also appreciate the tips in the Shapeways tutorial Designing mechanical parts for 3D printing.

Ready to print your full color model? Get started here.

PRINT YOUR DESIGN

The post Best of Tutorial Tuesday: Full-Color Printing and Character Models appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

When designing an action figure to be 3D printed, the best way to create articulated components that are poseable is with snap-fit ball joints.

ModiBot Custom Shop’s Armor Set for ModiBot Mo

Ball joints work as snap-fit components and cannot be 3D printed together as the friction required to make the parts pose-able would result in the parts being fused together. When designing ball joints it is best to make them an ‘exact fit’ where the positive part (the ball) and the negative part (the socket) are the exact same circumference.  You need to ensure the socket component is not entirely enclosed, more like a C shape to allow the part to expand slightly to snap it into place.

try it yourself

ModiBot Custom Shop’s Moli Female DIY Poseable Figure Kit

Shapeways laser-sintered Nylon is the best material for creating snap fit ball joints as the material is strong enough to withstand the stress of being snapped into place (our Frosted Detail Plastic might just snap). The Nylon also has a slightly granular surface that also help to make the parts to grip together. Also note that our polishing and dying process which has a smoother surface than the raw Nylon still grips together for a firm fit, you do not need to change the design to allow for change in surface finish or dimensional changes.

To see some really good examples of snap-fit ball joints designed for 3D printing, check out the ModiBot shop by Kid Mechano which has many really good examples of ball joints in action.

make your figures move

The post How to Design Snap-Fit Ball Joints for 3D Printing appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Ideas

When you start out with an idea, how do you know what to make? How does it become meaningful? It’s easy to design and print things (here are lots of tutorials), but it can be hard to design that thing that is just right, somehow. The elegant thing; the beautiful thing; the thing that means something. The right thing that somehow is the answer to the question you didn’t even know how to ask.

For me, it usually happens by accident; basically I flail around in the dark for a long time until something just seems right. For example, my partner and I have our 20th wedding anniverary this year, so for some time I’ve been thinking about redesigning our wedding rings. One idea that I really liked was a riff on Courtney, etc.’s elegant Arrow Ring, which you may have seen a million times headlining the Platinum materials page on Shapeways:

In particular, I was interested in how the two bands float apart from each other. My idea was to turn this ring around so that it was a floating pair of rings in the front, but connected in the back. After twenty years as a couple, it seemed to me that we had learned how to to be our own people while still always having that solid connection behind everything. We talked it over and he agreed it sounded cool and that I should try some prototypes to see how the idea looked in real life.

Prototypes

Late in 2017 I designed some prototypes in Fusion 360 and sent them out to see what looked good, finally settling on a design that looks a lot like two copies of our current wedding rings, with a secret connection in the back. I’ve been wearing around an HP nylon prototype of the ring for a few weeks and I really love it. Here’s what the prototypes look like, and most recent design in silver.

There’s still some work to do; in particular the ring is a little soft in silver and the two bands can bend towards each other if pushed. I might make the connection thicker so the ring will be stronger, or maybe try a harder material. But, I’m not sure anymore that it’s the best wedding ring. Especially because this idea collided pretty awkwardly with another project I’m working on for Valentine’s Day…

Naming and meaning

Specifically, I’ve been working on some jewelry for the sadness of Valentine’s Day. I mean, yeah, Valentine’s Day is great and everything, with all the hearts and candy and Twitter/Instagram photos of how everyone is in love and doing Really Great All The Time. But we aren’t all doing really great all the time. Especially on Valentine’s Day, those who are fighting just to keep it together can feel invisible. I really liked the idea of having some pendants for the hard times. Pendants that make you feel stronger and give you something to hold on to when you’re facing big challenges.

But meaning is what you make it, and also to a large extent what you name it; my goal was to create simple, strong pieces that evoked difficult feelings, and give them evocative names to help reinforce that meaning. Here’s the one I like best so far; it’s called LOSS, and it represents what happens when things break and the center falls out. It’s nice to hold on to and feel the gap, maybe try to close it up with your finger, or put your finger through the arc:

Rediscovery and redesign…

So here’s the awkward part: While thinking about other designs for the Valentine’s Day series I realized that I was already sitting on a perfect design. A ring that looks like a wedding ring, but broken in two pieces — and, even worse, with a perfect name: SEPARATED. So yeah, our new wedding ring is now part of my bleak Valentine’s Day series. Ouch! Thanks, design process! My loving husband very sensibly has already told me that we should to find another design for our 20th wedding anniversary, and yes, ok, he is right. Back to the drawing board!

Happy New Year everyone, and have fun finding your new projects for the year. Don’t forget to share them with us with the hashtag #Create2018 on social channels or comment below if you’ve got a cool design and would like to share your works in progress!

The post Tutorial Tuesday 49: Making Meaning appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

This Tutorial Tuesday we’ll highlight some of this year’s 3D design tutorials that even the youngest (or oldest!) of your loved ones can use to make custom and personalized 3D prints in just a few minutes. Choose one of the tutorial introductions below and get started creating in no time!

Getting Started Quickly

Whatever your age or experience, you can jump right in with Tinkercad, a free in-browser design program that’s as easy to use as dragging and dropping shapes onto a workspace. If you want a 3D sandbox to play in, check out how to get started in Tutorial Tuesday 3: Beginner 3D Design With Tinkercad.

Quick Personalized Models

Ready for family D&D night? Create your own custom tabletop character pieces with Hero Forge. It’s easy to mix and match outfits, physical characteristics, and poses with Hero Forge’s intuitive interface. Learn how to get started quickly with Tutorial Tuesday 36: Quick Custom D&D Characters With Hero Forge.

Or, make a family portrait lithophane for your window using Cura. Cura is a “slicer” program for sending 3D models to a printer, but you can also use it to quickly turn photographs into translucent, light-up artwork, following the instructions in Tutorial Tuesday 38: Lightning-Fast Lithophanes With Cura.

If you were dreaming of a white Christmas but didn’t get any snow, make your own unique flakes with the Snowflake Machine. Designing your own custom snowflake is as easy as choosing a random seed and then modifying style parameters with sliders. To get started right away, check out Tutorial Tuesday 45: Make One Billion Snowflakes With the Snowflake Machine.

For the Kids

If the kids are tearing up the house and need something to do, let them have some screen time that actually teaches them something. Here are three design programs guaranteed to keep your kids busy and introduce them to the basics of 3D design. First, the Morphi app for iPad (or desktop version) is really fun to use and intuitive for kids to learn. Find out how to get set up with Morphi in our article Tutorial Tuesday 21: 3D Design Made Simple With Morphi and an iPad.

Second, BlocksCAD lets your kids use code to design simple models, much like the popular drag-and-drop visual coding language Scratch. If they’re learning Scratch at school then BlocksCAD will be second nature to them already. Get started with Tutorial Tuesday 24: Learn to Code in 3D With BlocksCAD.

Finally, let the kids smash things up with the fun design program 3D Slash, where you design by smashing and exploding blocks — with sound effects — to construct 3D objects. Get started in just a few minutes with Tutorial Tuesday 37: Quick 3D Design With 3D Slash.

Happy Holidays everyone, and Merry New Year!!

The post Tutorial Tuesday 48: Family Design Time appeared first on Shapeways Blog.