Cat Bookmark: 3D Prototype
Designed and built the 3d model for a cat bookmark with 123Design.
DESIGN
For this assignment, I decided to model a bookmark. I first did some Google search on different types of bookmarks and studied the structure of them. I decided to go with the clip structure for bookmark, and sketched several animal shapes for the bookmarks (because animals are cure). I didn’t have the dimensions for all the parts figured out, but just have the total length defined ahead to be 10cm. My idea was the bookmark itself will be more flat, and the face and the body of the animal together will form a clip. I planned to use an incline shape with a height of about 5mm to connect the face and the body.
Then I decided to model the cat bookmark first with 123d Design. The approach I used to model was using several thin layers to show the outline of different shapes.
REFLECTION
Several challenges I encountered when modeling included aligning surfaces, and moving the shape along z-axis with a better reference (instead of relative position, it would be nice if I could also do absolute positioning in the coordinates). I wish that there would be some layer function in the tool so I could reverse the actions more easily (ctrl-z might not always work, especially after merging or after saving and re-opening the file). Also, I wish I could have more basic shapes to model with (like semi sphere). In general, I enjoy sketching the idea and figuring out the structure of the object. Using the tool was a little bit frustrated but since the model was not complicated, there weren’t any huge problems I ran into when modeling. Although I do hope I know the resolution of the printer is 0.2 mm before modeling, as I had some parts of the model to be 0.1 mm thick and the printer was not able to do that, so I had to adjust the thickness of the model.
