Beginners 411 on 3D Printing & Scanning

Before investing in a 3d printer I highly recommend using a 3d print shop like Shapeways.com.

They provide a service that can print in all kinds of materials, colors and sizes, and you can get immediate pricing.

3d models can be downloaded from sites like Thingiverse.com and submitted to Shapeways for printing.

You can also make your own 3d models using Shapeway’s 3d modeling tool, and 3rd party packages like Blender and OpenScad, all of which are free.

It has also become cheap and easy to scan anything/anyone into a 3d model using Skanect from Occipital.

The software works with many scanners including a $70 refurbished Kinect or Occiptal’s Kickstarter funded Structure Sensor for $350.

And it takes less than a minute to fully scan any object, including yourself, with full color.

Skanect also allows you to export directly to a 3d print shop or to a 3d model file on your desktop.

Before submitting your 3d model to print, I highly recommend one more step, which is to upload your 3d model into Microsoft’s online repair service called Netfabb .

Netfabb is really good at finding and repairing any issues your model might have and reduces the file size significantly in most cases.

If you feel the need to buy your own 3d printer start with researching the latest products on the market at http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/

One of the cheapest and most reliable 3d printers is the $500 DaVinci 1.0 from XYZ Printing and their plastic filament, replacement cartridges cost around $30.

Finally, one really cool use of 3d models is to make molds for chocolate and ice cubes.

You can find food safe, silicon putty at your local Michaels crafts stores and online at Amazon .

Hope this helps.

I’ll update this periodically as the technology and pricing keeps changing.

Sabri