I am very interested in finding more resources that take concepts from design to print. The curriculum in Sketchup for Schools only works the graphics, and those aren’t necessarily printable. We are encountering myriad complications in printing from the Sketchup platform. Even guiding students through different techniques in making models hollow, for instance. Some video tutorials would go a long way towards moving us forward in the process. Are there any out there, or in the pipeline?
There are several out there that deal with Sketchup itself. I cannot seem to find much on the Schools version. Thanks very much.
I’ll be making some! Good to know there is interest. What are you having problems with in particular? What kind of projects are you interested in printing?
BTW, I wrote a book on this topic: 3D Printing with Sketchup. I know I learn better via video, that’s why I’m interested in making videos as well.
Thanks d12dozr, we are using Sketchup for Schools, which has a different interface than Sketchup itself. Great for younger minds, but without the training materials to take a design all the way to a print, including things to look out for, we’re really struggling to grow our skills.
We are finding that surfaces are too thin, for instance, or that the bottom is not quite level when sent to the slicing software. Or we can’t figure out how to make a curve gain depth in order to make a 3D printed curved surface. Lots of little things that are becoming dead ends and prohibiting a lot of our projected projects.
I’m interested in your book, but don’t want to get a resource that is great for Pro but not adaptable to Sketchup for Schools. Do you happen to know if there are projects in your book that could be done with only the buttons and tools in Sketchup for Schools?
It’s interesting that SUfSchools has STL output rolled into it (the regular program needs a plugin), but being a surface modeler, it’s not the easiest program to make printable models, as compared to, say, TinkerCAD. It can be done, but one very useful tool is the Solid Inspector plugin to check the model for 3D printing problems. SUfSchools doesn’t support plugins, so you may want to consider using SketchUp Make 2017 for your class instead of, or in addition to SUfS. For the four prior years to now, Make is what I taught my class with, and this year, while experimenting with SUfS, two of my students used Make anyway.
I found myself wanting a tool to thicken surfaces for 3D printing; one to do with surfaces what the offset tool does with lines, and there may well be plugins to do this, but again, you’d need SU Make for that, not SUfS.
Sounds familiar, the problems you describe I subconsciously account for
while modeling. Some of them can be fixed by good modeling practices, and
others will need training.
The book is big on theory and main concepts that will always be useful for
3D printing, while the specific step-by-step instructions can be done in
Free/Edu but would need some interpretation because the dialog boxes look
different. For now, I would recommend it for educators like yourself, to
help you understand the concepts that you could then use to teach the
students.
I have some ideas that will be helpful to you and your students…see you
around
