CADspan Plug-in for Sketchup

One of the things I've been doing since coming to work at Xardas has been to try to become more acquainted with the concepts of 3d design for rapid prototyping. We've got plenty of people to answer our clients' more technical questions, but knowing the process from beginning to end will help me, personally, better address your customer service needs as well.

My background is in graphic design so I'm happiest working in Photoshop and Illustrator (or a pencil, or a paintbrush) - I have no CAD experience to speak of. So I'm starting out, like many of you non-engineers, with Sketchup. I've been through a bunch of very helpful tutorials and can now make a simple house, a vase, etc. I love how intuitive it all is, and I'm looking forward to really being able to do some cool things with it.

This week I installed a plug-in that would be useful for many people designing for 3d printing. It's CADspan, it's free, and it helps you detect reversed faces and non-watertightness. It also lets you export an STL file. Did I mention that it's free? It also has a smooth/unsmooth option and various other tools I haven't played around with.

I have yet to actually print any of my own designs, but as soon as I have a free moment I plan to try!

3d Printing in The Economist

On the heels of a recent NY Times article about 3d printing, the industry just made the cover of the print edition of The Economist. Pretty cool.

Happy Valentine's Day

Since today is Valentine’s Day (and our new blog’s birthday), it seemed only apropos that we share a link to one young designer’s Valentine to his 3d printer.