Hi David,

Sorry to hear your first experience with a z-corp machine left a bit to be desired. However, the level of detail on the model is very nice. Was the model for a healthcare clinic?

Seams can be tricky to work with...with a bit of work you can get pretty solid surfaces where the edges touch. Yet, they can take a bit of time. Here's a few photos of before and after. Also, thought you might get a kick out of this small bathroom and room layout we did for a client that builds temporary housing plans using SketchUp. Amazing what can come out of 3D Warehouse and eventually a 3d printer.

How did the model work for your client meeting?
Jake
Sweet Onion Creations

@solo said:

Hi Jake and welcome to SCF, we chatted in the limo on way to San Jose airport.

I am still interested in candy 3D printing.

I have one question, during your presentation you made available your models for everyone to touch and view, is there anyway to get the overall model smoother? It seemed a little rough to the touch.

Hi! Nice to bump into you online. For being such a fancy limo, why didn't the air conditioning work?

Regarding your question on roughness: The models can be left more raw if you're going for quick concepts (this is what we're shooting to present at 3D Basecamp...download, print, harden, paint in under 3 hours). However, if you want very high quality, we sand and build up a base primer coat and then match colors off a rendering. This takes more time but the result is a very smooth surface and almost look like they have been through an injection molding process.
Here's a shot of the results:

@lewiswadsworth said:

Since the question has come up, what format do you actually end up sending to the printer? When I worked for YSOA, we had a Dimension ABS printer that accepted only water-tight STL files. The models were typically made in Rhino, but then the Rhino-generated STL files were still run though Geomagic to make sure they were absolutely tight.

What do you end up doing with mesh files from SketchUp to get the 310 to like them?

We do end up using watertight STL files (or as absolutely close as we can get them). We eventually purchased some software just for repairing STL files. I know ZCorp is offering their ZEdit solution as well but we have no experience using it.

You're right though...if you don't respect the meaning of "watertight" than you're disappointed when it comes out of the machine in tiny little fragments.

@lewiswadsworth said:

I'm not sure if he was responsible for that door prize. I asked him to contribute some images of his prints to this thread.

Hi Everybody,

My name is Jake from Sweet Onion Creations out of Bozeman, Montana. We had a blast down at 3D Basecamp last week and met some really nice, smart people. We donated the door prize because it seems everybody has a cool design that needs to be brought to life. We'll post pics of what the winner comes up with.

Lewis and I had a great chat about 3-D printing and we're more than happy to upload a few photos of a couple buildings we built off 3D Warehouse for examples. (Note: King Kong climbs the Empire State Building and not the Chrysler Building in the film. However, we feel any large structure looks better with a monkey hanging off it. Unfortunately, most architects don't feel the same way.)

We're also working on putting together some videos of the process...very basic clips but we'd love to hear everybody's reaction and input.

If anybody has questions about 3D printing, STL files, tips, etc. Feel free to post and I'll do my best to answer. Thanks for viewing!
Jake