Make Fancy Resin Printer 3D Models FDM-Friendly

March 19, 2025 by Donald Papp 17 Comments

Do you like high-detail 3D models intended for resin printing, but wish you could more easily print them on a filament-based FDM printer? Good news, because [Jacob] of Painted4Combat shared a tool he created to make 3D models meant for resin printers — the kind popular with tabletop gamers — easier to port to FDM. It comes in the form of a Blender add-on called Resin2FDM. Intrigued, but wary of your own lack of experience with Blender? No problem, because he also made a video that walks you through the whole thing step-by-step.

Resin2FDM separates the model from the support structure, then converts the support structure to be FDM-friendly.

3D models intended for resin printing aren’t actually any different, format-wise, from models intended for FDM printers. The differences all come down to the features of the model and how well the printer can execute them. Resin printing is very different from FDM, so printing a model on the “wrong” type of printer will often have disappointing results. Let’s look at why that is, to better understand what makes [Jacob]’s tool so useful.

Rafts and a forest of thin tree-like supports are common in resin printing. In the tabletop gaming scene, many models come pre-supported for convenience. A fair bit of work goes into optimizing the orientation of everything for best printed results, but the benefits don’t carry directly over to FDM.

For one thing, supports for resin prints are usually too small for an FDM printer to properly execute — they tend to be very thin and very tall, which is probably the least favorable shape for FDM printing. In addition, contact points where each support tapers down to a small point that connects to the model are especially troublesome; FDM slicer software will often simply consider those features too small to bother trying to print. Supports that work on a resin printer tend to be too small or too weak to be effective on FDM, even with a 0.2 mm nozzle.

To solve this, [Jacob]’s tool allows one to separate the model itself from the support structure. Once that is done, the tool further allows one to tweak the nest of supports, thickening them up just enough to successfully print on an FDM printer, while leaving the main model unchanged. The result is a support structure that prints well via FDM, allowing the model itself to come out nicely, with a minimum of alterations to the original.

Resin2FDM is available in two versions, the Lite version is free and an advanced version with more features is available to [Jacob]’s Patreon subscribers. The video (embedded below) covers everything from installation to use, and includes some general tips for best results. Check it out if you’re interested in how [Jacob] solved this problem, and keep it in mind for the next time you run across a pre-supported model intended for resin printing that you wish you could print with FDM.

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Belfry OpenSCAD Library (BOSL2) Brings Useful Parts And Tools Aplenty

February 18, 2025 by Donald Papp 16 Comments

OpenSCAD has a lot of fans around these parts — if you’re unaware, it’s essentially a code-based way of designing 3D models. Instead of drawing them up in a CAD program, one writes a script that defines the required geometry. All that is made a little easier with the Belfry OpenSCAD Library (BOSL2).

Designing a part like this is a cinch with BOSL2.

BOSL2 has an extensive library of base shapes, advanced functions for manipulating models, and some really nifty tools for creating attachment points on parts and aligning components with one another. If that sounds handy for designing useful objects, you’re in for even more of a treat when you see their functions for gears, hinges, screws, and more.

There’s even one that covers bottle necks and caps. (Those are all standardized by the way, so it’s never been easier to interface to existing bottles or caps in a project.)

OpenSCAD really is very versatile software. It powers useful tools like this screw, washer, and nut generator as well as having more unusual applications like a procedural terrain generator. It’s free, so if you’ve never looked into it, check it out!

Watch A 3D Scan Become A Car Body Model

December 20, 2024 by Donald Papp 1 Comment

Not all 3D scanning is alike, and the right workflow can depend on the object involved. [Ding Dong Drift] demonstrates this in his 3D scan of a project car. His goal is to design custom attachments, and designing parts gets a lot easier with an accurate 3D model of the surface you want to stick them on. But it’s not as simple as just scanning the whole vehicle. His advice? Don’t try to use or edit the 3D scan directly as a model. Use it as a reference instead.

Rather than manipulate the 3D scan directly, a better approach is sometimes to use it as a modeling reference to fine-tune dimensions.

To do this, [Ding Dong Drift] scans the car’s back end and uses it as a reference for further CAD work. The 3D scan is essentially a big point cloud and the resulting model has a very high number of polygons. While it is dimensionally accurate, it’s also fragmented (the scanner only captures what it can see, after all) and not easy to work with in terms of part design.

In [Ding Dong Drift]’s case, he already has a 3D model of this particular car. He uses the 3D scan to fine-tune the model so that he can ensure it matches his actual car where it counts. That way, he’s confident that any parts he designs will fit perfectly.

3D scanning has a lot of value when parts have to fit other parts closely and there isn’t a flat surface or a right angle to be found. We saw how useful it was when photogrammetry was used to scan the interior of a van to help convert it to an off-grid camper. Things have gotten better since then, and handheld scanners that make dimensionally accurate scans are even more useful.

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What’s New In 3D Scanning? All-In-One Scanning Is Nice

August 27, 2024 by Donald Papp 29 Comments

3D scanning is important because the ability to digitize awkward or troublesome shapes from the real world can really hit the spot. One can reconstruct objects by drawing them up in CAD, but when there isn’t a right angle or a flat plane in sight, calipers and an eyeball just doesn’t cut it.

Scanning an object can create a digital copy, aid in reverse engineering, or help ensure a custom fit to something. The catch is making sure that scanning fits one’s needs, and isn’t more work than it’s worth.

I’ve previously written about what to expect from 3D scanning and how to work with it. Some things have changed and others have not, but 3D scanning’s possibilities remain only as good as the quality and ease of the scans themselves. Let’s see what’s new in this area.

All-in-One Handheld Scanning

MIRACO all-in-one 3D scanner by Revopoint uses a quad-camera IR structured light sensor to create 1:1 scale scans.

3D scanner manufacturer Revopoint offered to provide me with a test unit of a relatively new scanner, which I accepted since it offered a good way to see what has changed in this area.

The MIRACO is a self-contained handheld 3D scanner that, unlike most other hobby and prosumer options, has no need to be tethered to a computer. The computer is essentially embedded with the scanner as a single unit with a touchscreen. Scans can be previewed and processed right on the device.

Being completely un-tethered is useful in more ways than one. Most tethered scanners require bringing the object to the scanner, but a completely self-contained unit like the MIRACO makes it easier to bring the scanner to the subject. Scanning becomes more convenient and flexible, and because it processes scans on-board, one can review and adjust or re-scan right on the spot. This is more than just convenience. Taking good 3D scans is a skill, and rapid feedback makes practice and experimentation more accessible.

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Enthusiast Seeks Keycap Designer For Alphasmart NEO

February 17, 2024 by Kristina Panos 14 Comments

If you were an American kid in the 1990s, chances are good that you may have been issued a little word processing machine by your school called an Alphasmart. These purpose-built machines created by an offshoot of Apple engineers were way cheaper than the average laptop at the time, and far more prepared to be handed over to the average child. The salesmen used to drop-kick them at trade shows to demonstrate their toughness.

Today, these machines are revered by writers, especially those who participate in NaNoWriMo, a yearly event in which people attempt to write the first draft of a novel during the month of November.

The Alphasmart NEO, NEO2, and Dana models are of particular note because they each have a really nice scissor-switch membrane keyboard. Yeah, that’s right. A really nice membrane keyboard.

The problem is that things wear out with time. As you may have guessed, Alphasmart is no longer around, and so they can’t offer replacement keycaps. Can you help by creating a 3D model? [E.F. Nordmed] and many others would sure appreciate it.

You may remember the Alphasmart NEO from these very pages. We sure do love them for distraction-free writing.

Synthesizing 360-degree Views From Single Source Images

November 10, 2023 by Donald Papp 17 Comments

ZeroNVS is one of those research projects that is rather more impressive than it may look at first glance. On one hand, the 3D reconstructions — we urge you to click that first link to see them — look a bit grainy and imperfect. But on the other hand, it was reconstructed using a single still image as an input.

Most results look great, but some — like this bike visible through a park bench — come out a bit strange. A valiant effort for a single-image input, all things considered.

How is this done? It’s NeRFs (neural radiance fields) which leverages machine learning, but with yet another new twist. Existing methods mainly focus on single objects and masked backgrounds, but a new approach makes this method applicable to a variety of complex, in-the-wild images without the need to train new models.

There are a ton of sample outputs on the project summary page that are worth a browse if you find this sort of thing at all interesting. Some of the 360 degree reconstructions look rough, some are impressive, and some are a bit amusing. For example indoor shots tend to reconstruct rooms that look good, but lack doorways.

There is a research paper for those seeking additional details and a GitHub repository for the code, but the implementation requires some significant hardware.

3D Modelling In English With AI

December 26, 2022 by Al Williams 17 Comments

By now, you’ve surely seen the AI tools that can chat with you or draw pictures from prompts. OpenAI now has Point-E, which takes text or an image and produces a 3D model. You can find a few runnable demos online, but good luck having them not too busy to work.

We were not always impressed with the output. Asking for “3d printable starship Enterprise,” for example, produced a point cloud that looked like a pregnant Klingon battle cruiser. Like most of these tools, the trick is finding a good prompt. Simple things like “a chair” seemed to work somewhat better.

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