3D Printing Promotional Stuff

[jyl]

Hey, in my neighborhood association we are thinking of ways to appreciate volunteers. Certificates, ribbons, etc have been mooted. I suddenly thought about some structures that people in the neighborhood see as symbolizing the neighborhood, and having them 3D printed as little plastic figures. Examples would be the arch or the statue below.

How would you go about having these made? Do you think its possible to do in an economical manner? Is there such a things as 3D laser scanning, or would we have to manually build a Solidworks model? What does it cost to have stuff 3D printed?

I'm all questions, sorry. Just hoping someone here can start me in the right direction.

[jyl]

Well, shee-hit, there is already a $35 royalty-free 3D model of the statue pictured above. is this something I can have 3D printed? Any recs for where to get it done inexpensively?

https://sketchfab.com/models/31de8a901aff4885a9c8d603e20474c5

[unclebilly]

That’s a neat idea.

Here is something to think about.

I am the President of one of our industry associations. Last year, we gave out 3 honorary memberships to long-standing members on our board.

We hand out about 10 speaker gifts per year at our technical lunch and learns too.

In the past we have gifted laser engraved Leathermens, plaques, etc. The issue with the leathermens is that out of town speakers can’t fly with these without checking luggage. The issue with plaques is that they become dust collectors and eventually wind up in a box in the attic...

This past year, we tried something different. We got YETI mugs and had them custom laser engraved it’s our association logo. The 3 honary members got special ones yet.

The cost was under $40 each including the mugs and engraving. These were really well received by everyone who got one.

We are doing these again this year.

[unclebilly]

Oh and if you stick with your plan... shapeways.com

[stomachmonkey]

Photogrammetry.

It's something you can try out and develop proficiency with at virtually $0.00 cost.

If you've got a nice quality DSLR, even a high end smartphone will do, a decent PC and a free copy of Zephyr you are ready to to go.

Zephyr is by far my favorite processor for images. There are others but the geek factor involved just gets in the way and does not result in better meshes.

https://www.3dflow.net/3df-zephyr-pro-3d-models-from-photos/

I use photogrammetry, structured light and infrared systems to generate volumetric 3d meshes and while they each excel at specific things any one of the three will work for most things.

All 3 will have trouble with objects that have high specular / reflective properties.

Once you understand how generating point clouds from reference points works it will make sense.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Well, shee-hit, there is already a $35 royalty-free 3D model of the statue pictured above. is this something I can have 3D printed? Any recs for where to get it done inexpensively?

https://sketchfab.com/models/31de8a901aff4885a9c8d603e20474c5

That was created using photogrammetry.

[jyl]

So I take it the arch pictured above would be relatively easier to model using photogrammetry than, say, the statue was?

Less work using Zephyr than to measure and manually build a CAD model? I could build a pretty accurate gross-scale Sketchup model of one of the arches in a few hours, but manually modeling the texture and detail would be hard.

I'm pretty excited about this . . .

People in my neighborhood would be thrilled to get little models of either as a token of appreciation. In fact, some would pay money for larger models, maybe enough for a fundraiser . . .

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

So I take it the arch pictured above would be relatively easier to model using photogrammetry than, say, the statue was?

Less work using Zephyr than to measure and manually build a CAD model? I could build a pretty accurate gross-scale Sketchup model of one of the arches in a few hours, but manually modeling the texture and detail would be hard.

I'm pretty excited about this . . .

People in my neighborhood would be thrilled to get little models of either as a token of appreciation. In fact, some would pay money for larger models, maybe enough for a fundraiser . . .

Photogrammetry uses multiple pictures of an object and tracks reference points.

Imagine rotating 360 around an object. By acquiring and tracking common reference points you can determine the shape of objects as the spatial relationship of those points change respective to each other.

From that you generate a point cloud that gets converted to your mesh.

The beauty is, it also stitches the images into a texture map for you.

Fun stuff.

As far as photogrammetry is concerned both objects would be the same basic amount of work for you. Far less than trying to build it yourself.

The tricky part will be getting the overhead shots on such a tall object.

Grab Zephyr and a camera.

You should be able to generate a texture mapped model of anything you have laying around the house in an hour first time out.

Just avoid glass, transparent objects. For those we spray paint them with a matte primer.

Reason being, transparent objects don't have consistent reference points cause, well, they are transparent.

[fanaudical]

In addition to Shapeways, you might check out Xometry too.