I made a Plesiosaur using laser cutting techniques. This time, I decided to turn my widely praised 2.5D project into a 3D project. Behold, here comes Hua’s Plesiosaur V2.
Design
I made several design changes to the original 2.5D Plesiosaur. First I removed those humps on its back (because Plesiosaur has no hump). Then, to make this object actually useful, I decided to leave a hole on the Plesiosaur’s back, turning it into a pen holder. This project is required to use at least one of three 3D printing operations: extrusion, revolution, and boolean. I used two of them. Since extrusion could not create spindle shaped objects, I used a variation of it, loft, to create the body of the Plesiosaur. I sketched several circles of different sizes and applied loft operation to connect them (see screenshots). For boolean, I subtracted a cylinder from its body, making the hole for pens.
This project is made with AutoCAD. I used Rhino at the beginning but somehow Rhino kept crashing on my computer, so I switched to AutoCAD, which is also very handy.
Sketching
Learning CAD software is painful. The biggest frustration in this project came from drawing the 3D object. However, I still managed to draw my Plesiosaur in AutoCAD.
I first drew a few circles to make an outline.
Then used the loft operation to convert them into a solid object. I tried to use revolution on an eclipse to make its head but I realized that it did not look like a head at all.
So I abandoned this idea and took a more complicated approach, drawing more detailed circles and lofted them to make a more realistic head.
This was the entire body.
I applied the same technique to make fins.
And that was the Plesiosaur.
The final step was to subtract a cylinder from the Plesiosaur’s back and mesh the whole thing because I knew that the printer was not precise enough to make smooth surfaces so that mesh surfaces would work better.
Printing
Import the file into makerbot app
The printing process was smooth. The only problem was that the supporting raft was annoying.
The pen holder held a pen!
Removing the support raft took a lot more time than I expected.
Eventually it was all good.It even floated in the water, which made it more authentic.
Feedback
I received plenty of comments during the peer review session. I was glad to see that they were mostly positive.
- Drawing a 3D object was so hard. I did not want to download a file made by someone else so I tried my best learning AutoCAD. I was struggling with 3 dimension views for a while but after playing it for several hours I got used to it;
- I wish I had known how to avoid having the raft or how to effectively remove them before doing this project. I used all the tools I had, including a knife, a pair of tweezers, a pair of pliers, and a rasp to remove the raft and polish the surface, but it was still really painful. Next time I will definitely flatten the bottom. Or if CoMotion can purchase some of these 3D printers which have water dissoluble raft, my life would be a lot easier.
- One thing I enjoyed most in this project was seeing the printer making this object. Moreover, although drawing in AutoCAD was difficult, I am really happy about learning a new skill;
- AutoCAD is very handy. Personally I prefer AutoCAD to Rhino because it is more stable (it did not crash) and its UI is more visually appealing. Most importantly, AutoCAD is free for students so my drawing skill can be useful in the future whereas Rhino expires in 90 days and I will definitely not spend 1600 dollars to purchase the license.
- One comment said that I could make the flipper joints wider so they are less fragile. I think that is a reasonable point.
My favorite comment: “I love this! You should make it into a wine holder by making it a lot bigger. Drink it when something you never thought would happen happens.”