FUN WITH 3D PRINTERS! How To Create A 3D Logo In Google Sketchup

Transcription

1 FUN WITH 3D PRINTERS! How To Create A 3D Logo In Google Sketchup Tony Cervantes, 10/7/2011 1

2 Purpose Have more fun with a 3D printer to make 3D logos or 3D names Show how to make a 3D logo using Google Sketchup. You can download Google Sketchup and tutorials at: Download and install a Google Sketchup to.stl converter You can use any Windows font to create a 3D name or logo in Google Sketchup Note that this tutorial is for a smaller, 1 piece version of the 3 piece logo shown on the title page 2

3 Starting Off In Google Sketchup Start a new session of Google Sketchup Choose template Architectural Design millimeters Click the figure of a woman (figure 1) near the origin and hit the delete key Origin = the intersection of the red, green & blue axes Draw a rectangle 100 mm x 100 mm Adjust the numbers to the size of your build platform Click and hold at the origin and then drag the cursor a bit diagonally. This starts drawing a rectangle While still holding the left mouse button down, type 100,100 <enter> You should now have a rectangle that is 100 mm x 100 mm Click the zoom extents button just above the hand to fit the image Rotate the image for a better view (figure 2) 3

4 Starting Off In Google Sketchup Figure 1 Figure 2 4

5 Draw The Name Or Logo First flip the face of the rectangle so it appears white, not gray Select the rectangle Right click it and select reverse faces Click the 3D text tool, a dialog box will appear Type the name, select the font, bold/italic/etc (I selected tubular ) Click place to position the text The text can be enlarged using the scale tool to resize it Scaling from a corner preserves the aspect ratio Scaling from a middle point stretches or shrinks it in that direction Your model should now look similar to figure 3. 5

6 Draw The Name Or Logo Figure 3 6

7 Connect The Letters Camera > Standard Views > Top produce a nice view for this step Explode the curves of the letters Click the name so that the name is highlighted Right click and select explode Draw 2 guidelines 2 or 3 mm apart so the all connections are consistent Select the tape measure tool Drag the bottom edge of the rectangle up so it just below the center of the small letters Drag and hold the guideline you created and type 2 <enter? For large letters type 3 <enter> Use the guidelines to draw lines to connect all the letters Connect the dot over the i to the rest of the i Delete the lines between the guidelines at the connections and the lines forming the edges of the rectangle See figure 4 7

8 Connect The Letters Figure 4 8

9 Clean Up The Letters In figure 4, we can see that there are no holes in the letters o, d and e. The letters won t extrude properly this way. To make the hole in the letter Zoom in on the letter o Erase one straight line along the edge where the hole should be Redraw it with the line tool Select the center of the hole to highlight it Hit the delete key The o should now have a hole Repeat for the other letters with filled in holes The result should look like figure 5 9

10 Clean Up The Letters Figure 5 10

11 Extrude The Letters Partway Use the push/pull tool to extrude the letters partway How far to extrude is a matter of personal preference Here I started push/pull ing the area and then typed 10 <enter> We will extrude the letters only partway, so that the top most layer will not show the connections. The result should look like figure 6 11

12 Extrude The Letters Partway Figure 6 12

13 Draw Lines To Form The Final Letters Draw lines at the connection using the line tool to form the final letter shape See figure 7 below Figure 7 13

14 Extrude The Letters The Rest Of The Way Use the push/pull tool to extrude the letters the rest of the way How far to extrude is a matter of personal preference Here I started push/pull ing the area and then typed 4 <enter> The result should look like figure 8 Figure 8 14

15 Final Steps Move the letters so that they approximately centered on the origin Export to.stl file using: Tools > Export to DXF or STL Export Unit: select millimeters Export DXF options: select STL Select a name for the.stl file Open ReplicatorG Open the file Click the move button Click the center button and the put on platform button Save the updated.stl Proceed as usual with ReplicatorG 15

16 Additional Comments The step Draw Lines To Form The Final Letters can sometimes produce letters with a larger flat than desired. The following can be done to form perfect letters, but is tricky. When you perform the step Connect The Letters copy the lines to be deleted to a holding area delete the lines on the area to be extruded In place of the step Draw Lines To Form The Final Letters Move the lines from above back to the letters 16