Hi Suzanne, I only really know of one high school that uses it currently, if you want to send me an e-mail at moi@moi3d.com I'll then forward you some contact information for them.

The software itself is a good fit for that age I think, but I do not really have any prepackaged lesson plans or materials or things like that so it may not be easy to just drop into place without doing quite a bit of that kind of lesson development on your own.

- Michael

Hi Suzanne, if you do find success in integrating Moi into a curriculum, you should definitely consider Fabian Franzens' overview pdf as a guide.

http://moi3d.com/download/Moi3d-Overview.pdf

Thanks Mike, I have seen the guide and its a really useful tool for learning MOI as are your tutorials. I am hoping to spend the holidays having a go at them!

I am attending a teacher's PD introducing (selling) the UP Mini 3d printer next week. I thought I'd take along a file to test it out. I've been working on developing a unit of work for year 9-10 students aligning it with the Australian Curriculum, so I'll take what I've been working on. Mind you, I am really still at the fumbling stage! I have taught Photoshop to that age group and I am aware that images of themselves are important (thank you Facebook) so I'll test out this piece:



I traced an image of my daughter after using a stamp filter in Photoshop. I think it worked well but would have been better with Illustrator, which I'll get around to, eventually. Will the UP Mini recognise the STL produced? Am I making it too complicated, should I take a simple ring file?

Honestly, I think if they are promoting UP to high School students, they should be looking at MOI...Which, of course, I'll mention next week! I know I'm not that competent, yet, but give the students a few basics and their imaginations will do the rest!

This was my original thought until I remembered how students liked manipulating their images. I'd need to spend a good deal more time refining it to not look so chunky!

Hi Suzanne, that's a cool project, it should be fun to test it with the UP printer.

Yes, as long as your object is a closed solid (which it is, in your screenshot you can see the object type listed as "solid" in the upper-right corner), your STL file should be recognized.

The only thing though is that the little chain connector loop will probably add some amount of complication to the print, because having the main body of your pendant elevated somewhat above the bottom level will mean the printer will have to build a kind of support structure underneath it. That's not automatically bad but for some cases it might be better to have things like that as 2 separate pieces that you then maybe glue together rather than doing it all as one print.

Also it's possible that some of your details like the eyes and nose shapes may just be a little bit too small for the printer to be able to reproduce very well - it will try but it kind of blobs out melted plastic and if your detail is smaller than the blob size it will end up kind of just lost in the blob... Sometimes details that are too small just don't work very well with some kinds of 3D printing mechanisms.

It can take a little bit of practice to get used to the limitations of the particular print method being used, as far as knowing what kinds of structures and details are not going to be generated very well.

It's not like it will hurt anything to just try and print it, you just might not get a very good result with some kinds of things though.

- Michael

Thinking you are right about the printer, so I simplified the pendant & made it larger. I'm not sure the desktop printers are good for jewellery at all? Having fun thinking about it anyway!

Hi Suzanne, that simplified version will probably print a bit easier.

> I'm not sure the desktop printers are good for jewellery at all?

They definitely can be, it's just that there are certain kinds of designs that are not a good fit depending on the particular mechanism of the printer. The less expensive printers work by laying down a little stream of melted plastic and designs with too tiny details like narrow little slivery areas can just not fit with that mechanism just because the smallest little blob of plastic may be larger than your little detail.

Things that are more like larger blocks of text or overall broader shapes kind of are a better fit - a kind of photo reproduction can be not such a good fit though, unless you make it pretty heavily stylized like you're moving more towards.

For a photo pendant something more like a locket type thing would be kind of a better fit where you would put in an actual photo inside the printed piece rather than trying to 3D print the photo itself as well.

Jewelry can actually be a really good use of these machines, it just takes some experience working with them a bit to get used to what types of things you would kind of like to avoid.

It's not like it will hurt anything to try a shape that doesn't work well, it's just that little fine details may just not get reproduced and may look rather blobby.

Some of the more expensive machines use different processes which can generate finer resolution also.

- Michael

Hi Suzanne,

Your project reminded me of a software that I saw at an exhibition long ago which I thought was pretty cool, the software converts photographs into height maps according to the shades in the photograph then the file can be output to a 3d printer to be printed, it doesn't look like much at first but when you backlight the piece that's when the magic happens, here's an example on the software companies site http://www.ransen.com/phototomesh/Lithophane-STL-Files.htm

They're called Lithophanes, apparently it's an old art that used to hand carved in porcelain.

-

Thanks for the tip Danny.
I had a go with the demo & it seems pretty straightforward. It's certainly something I'll bear in mind as a possible application to use with jewellery. All I need now is a printer to try it on. I'm right in thinking that I can't import it into MOI to edit or, put another way, I couldn't figure out how to do it!

Thanks again for the tip.

Hi Suzanne,

you should give ZSurf a try, to archive that task.

http://www.kf12.com/blogs/techno/2007/08/zsurf/

Regards
Stefan

Some links to previous ZSurf discussions on the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3825.2

And yeah that could probably 3D print better since the details are more of a kind of rolling shape rather than individual tiny sharp protrusions.

- Michael

Hi Suzanne

I use Moi3d for Jewellery design as part of the manufacturing and sales process.

Currently the two companies I use to print, print with solidscape wax printing technology that prints to .025mm

The UP printer has I think best resolution of .15mm this will not print your small items with very much detail .

for example the 5mm ring will only print approx 33 layers so you will lose the sharp corners and have very jaggy curves on the lettering and the inside and outside curves.

to print small items or jewellery you need a printer with a much higher print resolution. Hi resolution resin printers can print to .01mm on the z layer which is 500 layers for your ring giving an almost smooth surface.

This all comes at a cost of course , the printer below costs approx $23,000 New Zealand dollars and from there the sky is the limit for large production printers.

http://3dprintingsystems.com/products/3d-printers/kevvox-3d-printers-overview/

Your pendant looks great but I would move the hole further in from the edge , if you intend putting a ring through it.


cheers
shayne

Taking the 3D printer out of the equation for the moment, I'm beginning to think that a simple ring with a name would be a good way to introduce MOI to a class. I've been playing around with one of the original ring tutorials I did on your resources page and thought...Why not keep it simple? Adding the name however is not so simple. I've tried Boolean difference and I think the cookie cutter tutorial using offset/inset is another possibility (or a simple pendant or signet ring might work better). I'm going to write it up using Fabien's "3D Modelling in MOI as inspiration, but restrict it to the tools needed for the task. Learn by doing! There is also another tutorial looking at lighting and how to recreate different materials which I'll partly include as it provides an opportunity to teach lighting: Key, fills etc. Also looking at different materials can be a door to open discussion/research on the eco footprint of one ring over another. Sustainability is now part of the curriculum.
I was mentored by a leading Goldsmith when I wrote a vocational course on introducing students to jewellery making techniques. He kept reining my ideas in and said keep it clean and simple and I think that applies here too. I will line it up with AusVELS and post it if there are any teachers out there who are interested. In the meantime I'm off to network with some product design teachers tomorrow who will be looking at the UP Mini printer. I'm curious to see what CAD software they are promoting to go with it. I've uploaded some screenshots of my REALLY SIMPLE ring, and yes, I do know if I print the one I've uploaded the A will be minus it's centre. I did get around that by separating the letters & not taking the A all the way through. All good fun!

Hi Suzanne
Another option is to use flow so the name sits above the surface

Although flow can be tricky to orientate correctly.

cheers
shayne

Hi Suzanne, a ring project like you're showing is a great idea for an introductory project - a kind of personalized touch is good I think.

- Michael

Hi Shayne,

A quick question...Do I need the new V3 to do that or can I achieve it with V2? Really showing my "novice "status here! I'd love to be able to do that without rotating every letter.

Thanks for the tip, it gives me hope of light at the end of my current tunnel!

Suzanne

Hi Suzanne - the Flow deformation tool is new for v3, it's not in v2.

- Michael

Hi Suzanne
The V3 is available to download as a full copy 1 month trial

A good ring project is from 1 of jesse's tutorials (thank you jesse) , briefly

You use the oval profile (dark purple) on the top and do a 2 rail sweep down the blue and pink , while in sweep command pick the scaling rail (dark red )

It is worth extruding the centre circle to see what the ring will look like when the centre is removed (at this stage you can turn the points on the red line and move them to change the shape)

select the created blob and boolean difference out the centre circle or cylinder if you are using it as above

Make sure the Aqua profiles follow inside the edge and booleandiff the edges off with the aqua profiles and delete the extra (this gives a flat edge to the band)

Lastly add the solid letter to the top with text

send to printer :)



Have fun , this can take a few goes to get the sequence right , note when drawing this all the profiles must touch

cheers
shayne

Hi Shane, the 30-day trial version is still for v2 currently, or v2.52 on the Mac which does actually have Flow in it there.

I won't have a 30-day trial version of v3 until v3 is all finalized and released.

- Michael