Use 3DVIA to Make a 3D Print of Your 3D Models Today!
We are very proud to announce another great service to the 3DVIA 3D Designers Community: Online 3D Printing! You can now use 3DVIA to print a real 3D model of your uploaded content through our partnership with 3D printing site, Sculpteo.com. It’s easy. Simply click the “Send to Sculpteo 3D Print” button on the view page of your own 3DVIA models and follow the instructions. Our friends over at Sculpteo will take care of the rest, including analyzing your 3D model to ensure the best print result possible. The ability to create real products from digital 3D models is very valuable to our users, and we are excited to be able to offer it to you today.
What Can Be 3D Printed Through 3DVIA.com and Sculpteo?
I give you “The Mush”! A nature inspired, green solution turning your small iPhone into a room-filling music station. It was imagined and created by Sébastien Rosel, a French designer using CATIA as the modeling application. It uses its mushroom-like shape to amplify the sound coming from your iPhone speakers and reduces the “metallic” aspect of the sound by naturally adding some bass. The effect is quite impressive.
You can see the before and after photos above of the 3D Model from CATIA and the resulting REAL 3D print of this innovative product. The actual product is very difficult, if not impossible, to create through traditional manufacturing methods. However, the 3D printing process opens new possibilities in design, and 3DVIA now opens this up to you! 3DVIA.com accepts over 30 popular 3D model formats including COLLADA (.dae) and direct publishing from SolidWorks, CATIA and 3DVIA Composer.
How to create 3D print-ready designs
As mentioned, simply upload your 3D model in any of the formats that 3DVIA.com supports and click the “Send to Sculpteo 3D Print” button on the view page of your 3DVIA model. It’s just that simple. However, a 3D model created to be 3D printed will need to follow a few guidelines that vary from models just used in visual media. Here are some useful guidelines to abide by:
- The model must have volume or wall thickness if interior spaces are shown. Minimum wall thickness of 1mm.
- The model should be stable. You may need to consider a stand or base for certain models.
- Keep in mind object scale. You will be printing in a maximum of 15cm x 15cm x15cm volume.
- You model file, plus associated textures (when zipper), must not exceed 25mb.
- Keep an eye on your surface direction or normals before you export.
You imagined it. You designed it. Now it’s time to transform your design into a real product!
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That is pretty neat if you are a professional, for example, Catia or Solidworks CAD designer making completley clean, smooth model design and you have the money to create it. (A small item has a price of about $200)
As usual, you are right on the money! Our mission has always been to “democratize 3D” and provide the tools to make high-end 3D creation accessible to a wider audience. That is a bit of corporate speak for “more people will try something if it is easy for them to do it”.
This is an odd question…but how much did that ipod amplifier cost to print? It looks like something that would cost a lot.
Hi Tomy, if I remember correctly, I was told the ipod amplifier cost was in the range of $250. As you noticed this one is indeed a more complex shape than the majority of printed objects (the average cost being more in the $50 to $60 range).
Congratulations to the Sculpteo & 3dvia Teams !
Thank you!
Very nice new feature, still a bit expansive, but it’s great to easily prototype designs
Thank you – we’re excited to see what users produce with the new service.
You know, actually I have found some great deals, but I’m not sure how the judjing system works. Despite the fact it costs $8.63 for the famous flowerbox in the windows screensaver, it costs $1085.08 to make a Wall-e robot. I suppose it’s caused by polycount, breakable areas, size, and material. Having a sculpture of my own models would be cool for a low price like $14, in fact I would take anything under $30 as long as it didn’t have to ship. But it does, unfortunately.