is it still in development? seems like it gets the job done above.
Not really … the plumbing is sound, but the faucet handles are ugly.
When trying different methods of modeling dirt for the flowerpot above, I played around with different random mesh generation algorithms. It looks even better when modeling water:
2 Likes
I like this alot, the reflection look really good!
I will give it a try
One of my holiday gifts was a box of “Penguin Science Fiction Postcards” from my daughter. Ironically, this was among them …
I’ve put together a couple of videos showing some of the features of the Spirix plugin:
PS: It finally works with metric units as well 
Some code to cut-and-paste into the Ruby Console:
for j in 0...100
t = 2*Math::PI*j/100
x = 16*Math.sin(t)**3
y = 13*Math.cos(t) - 5*Math.cos(2*t) - 2*Math.cos(3*t) - Math.cos(4*t)
pt1 = [x,y,0]
t = 2*Math::PI*(j+1)/100
x = 16*Math.sin(t)**3
y = 13*Math.cos(t) - 5*Math.cos(2*t) - 2*Math.cos(3*t) - Math.cos(4*t)
pt2 = [x,y,0]
Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_line(pt1,pt2)
end
[Equations courtesy of Wolfram]
2 Likes
@TheOnlyAaron’s Gallery creation of a Celtic Knot got me started on a number of variations. For Valentine’s Day, I had one of them 3D printed in sterling silver as a pendant for my wife.
As rendered:
As printed:
[1-5/8" in diameter]
5 Likes
Beautiful! I love to think that I was able to inspire! Now I feel inspired… never had anything printed in silver yet… where did you get it printed?
This was 3D printed by Shapeways. The model was first printed in wax and then cast in sterling silver using the lost wax process. The casting was then hand polished (I wished my camera could capture a better snapshot to show the mirror-like finish). Here’s another shot in full sunlight … you can see the sky and the surrounding houses (and myself, if you look closely enough):
I placed the order on 1/29 and it arrived on 2/12 (just in time for Valentine’s Day). Cost was $78.18 + $4.99 S&H (contains about $6 of silver at today’s market price).
6 Likes
It turned out beautiful, Jim! Well done!
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The incorporated “command-key” symbol is also very common in the Nordic countries. The oldest from Finland are carved on a pair of skis from around 1000 AD. The symbol was used on the obverse side of small Finnish coins until the advent of the Euro.
Anssi
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Everyone knows that the Nords love their Macs…
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I came across this entertaining video of how to create a Digital Sundial:
While I initially thought that this would have been a whole lot easier to do in SketchUp, it turns out to be much trickier than it looks. The author’s demonstrated use of openSCAD is at first very intimidating, but after downloading the software and reverse engineering his efforts, I think his creative use of nested loops and arrays is actually amazingly easy by comparison … sometimes a solids modeler is a lot handier to use 
After a number of false starts trying to re-invent the wheel using a 3x5 dot-matrix (to simplify things) and different time frames and increments, I gave up and finally just re-created his results in SketchUp:
digital_gnomon.skp (2.0 MB)
I wanted to 3D print a nameplate in bronze-infused stainless steel for my boss and, after numerous iterations, settled on this as the final design:
At 5.9" long, it’s a lot smaller than I would have liked, but it turned out pretty good:
There are three sides to the nameplate … one says “OPERATIONS MANAGER”, one has my boss’s name which starts with the letter “S” (deleted from the attached model for privacy), and the third side says “THE BIOS STOPS HERE” … “BIOS”, in this case, stands for “Blame It On S____” (using my boss’s name).
What’s worth mentioning about this design, I think, is that it’s composed of numerous solid components that are simply stuck together without any attempt to make the entire model a single solid. Not needing to explode and merge and cleanup things substantially simplifies the design phase.
nameplate_final.skp (790.7 KB)
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