I’m starting to prepare for the arrival of my printer so I’m starting to get more into the modeling side of things.
Of course there are too many options and I want to devote my time to the ones I’ll end up using more so I’m trying to see which ones work best for the way I think.
BUT… in the short term, I have a specific project consisting of multiple designs with a similar work flow and I want to make sure I’m not wasting my time doing things the hard way, so I thought I’d lay out what I’m doing and see if anyone has already figured out a good streamlined way to do it.
Basically I’m starting with a 2D bitmap image and creating a silhouette. Ultimately I’d have multiple layers like this that I’d extrude and assemble into a 3D design. Think of it like a box where I have a layer for the bottom and a layer for the top then I’ll connect the two with left/right/top/bottom sides.
I have Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2 and obviously access to Inkscape. So I was going to use one of those to trace the bitmap silhouette then I guess use Illustrator to export an SVG to import into some 3D program for the extrusion and assembly.
I’d love to just import the silhouette into a 3D program and do all the vector tracting there and cut out multiple export/import type functions.
So is there a 3D program that I can do that with? And, failing that, what’s the best workflow someone might recommend for going 2D Bitmap -> 2D Vector -> 3D extruded model. Then assemble multiple of those into a single 3D model.
I always went with Inkscape -> Trace Bitmap (a tool that you can use to 1-click turn a raster image into a vector) -> import into OpenSCAD and extrude. But OpenSCAD can be a little intimidating for some.
I took a look at Inkscape a while ago and I got the same feeling I did from that that I did from Gimp. That I could make due with it if I had to, but that Photoshop and Illustrator were a little better (even an ancient CS2 version of them). Although I have a love/hate thing with Adobe products too. hah
I believe Illustrator CS2 had a trace function as well. When I started messing with Illustrator, I noticed it’s pen tool worked different from Photoshop’s pen tool where if I made two points then tried to add an anchor to the middle of the line to drag and create a nice curve, it didn’t add the anchor. Going to go back and try it again, though… and give Inkscape another try I think.
OpenSCAD looks good to me. I’m a programmer, so the idea of working with code seemed natural to me. But I’m also messing around with 123Design for now.
Just wanted to make sure I couldn’t do it all right in a single 3D program, even if I had to manually trace the stuff.
It seems that your questions are above my understanding. However, two of the programs I use may be of some value to you. Some of which I am thinking can be handled in Tinkercad, import the silhouette and extrude, and some may work well in Bonzai3D. It has a nurbs functions that you can use to grab handles and create curves and extrude from point or line to other point or line. My ignorance is showing, but a quick glance at both products might give you a definitive answer. Bonzai3D is from Autodysys, makers of the more expensive FormZ and http://tinkercad.com is obvious.
Regardless, good luck and welcome to our community.
@Rojer_Wisner sorry for being overly-wordy and confusing. The short version if that I want to take a couple hand drawn outline graphic and turn it into the sides of a 3d printed box. Just looking for the shortest/most efficient way to do that without using 10 different programs.
I’ll definitely take a look (or a second look in some cases) At everything mentioned. Thanks again, guys!
