It’s time once again for another part in 3D Printering’s series of Making A Thing. Last week was a short tutorial on the beginnings of making a thing in AutoCAD. This is an extremely complex software package, and in a desire to make things short and sweet, I broke this AutoCAD tutorial into two parts.

Since we already covered the 2D design portion of AutoCAD, part II of this tutorial is going to turn our 2D part into a three-dimensional object. Check out the rest of the tutorial below.

Continue reading “3D Printering: Making A Thing In AutoCAD, Part II” →

Octopodes and useless plastic baubles begone. It’s time yet again for another installment of learning how to make a thing with 3D design tools. This week, we’re making something with AutoCAD. It’s an amazing piece of software that costs $4000 per seat. Hilariously expensive for any home tinkerer, but if you go to a university with an engineering program, there’s a computer lab with machines running AutoCAD somewhere on campus.

Last week we took a look at making something with OpenSCAD. AutoCAD is much, much different. Where OpenSCAD is sorta, kinda like programming, AutoCAD is just a digital version of t-squares, triangles, straight edges, and people getting uppity when you don’t call their drawing device a ‘lead holder’.

I’ve broken this tutorial down into two parts: right now you’re reading the tutorial on drawing 2D objects in AutoCAD. This weekend I’ll publish the transformation of 2D objects into a 3D printable part. Read on for how to create a 2D object in AutoCAD.

Continue reading “3D Printering: Making A Thing With AutoCAD, Part I” →