Hi, All,

I just got a Da Vinci 1 3D printer, and I need it primarily for one project, to create raised transfer patterns.  I want to 3D print a flat plane with raised ridges that correspond to my designs/line drawings so I can transfer them (in reverse) to other physical media. 

I was going to work on the project at my leisure over the next 8 weeks of "vacation" (I'm self employed, and this is my slow season), but I got a call to help a friend with a work crunch  that will cut my free time down to a few hours a week until I need to get busy with my own work again.  As a result my time to get to know the software is crunched down to practically nothing.

I have legal copies of Silo 2, Shade 10, Hex 2.5, Carrara 8, Pegasus, Curvy 3D, Blender, etc. (all legal) that I purchased some time ago, but haven't had any real time to become familiar with.  

My main question is "Would Blender3D lend itself well to easily converting my drawings to a 3D mesh of a raised (very low relief) transfer plate?" If not, what software would work simplest and best? Any resulting files need to be saved as STL files or converted to print.

Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated. 

Thanks  ~Jerry / leather-guy

Hello Jerry

As to exporting to STL both Silo and Blender will export to that format. Personally I feel that Blender would be the more robust of the two and there has been recently made tutorials of things you need to take into consideration when modeling for 3D printing here is one that maybe useful and give you some more informational insight to what you want to accomplish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHxs4uerHjw 

Hope this helps some

Hello Jerry

As to exporting to STL both Silo and Blender will export to that format. Personally I feel that Blender would be the more robust of the two ...

I second the motion, and not just because I'm a Blender-phile. I have the latest Windows and Linux versions of Silo: there are still issues. Tried both flavours on two widely different systems: Silo still locks up on me and/or crashes in certain situations. Which is a pity, as I was using it to do Fugazi's modelling tutorials... now, I'll have to sort out how to do what Fugazi does in Blender. And Silo just does certain things differently.

I second the motion, and not just because I'm a Blender-phile. I have the latest Windows and Linux versions of Silo: there are still issues. Tried both flavours on two widely different systems: Silo still locks up on me and/or crashes in certain situations. Which is a pity, as I was using it to do Fugazi's modelling tutorials... now, I'll have to sort out how to do what Fugazi does in Blender. And Silo just does certain things differently.

Hi Robyn As to Silo just curious have you updated to the new latest release? There is a 64 Bit version for both Win and Linux just download from their trail page your license for 2.2 will work for the new versions. As to doing Fugazi tutorials which at this point I think I own all of them and highly recommend them. Most will translate to Blender with a few tweaks like for instance one of the top of my head is the one on making a treasure chest he makes multiple cuts in a box where in Blender to achieve the same thing he was doing we would use the edge slide. The mirror function in Blender seems more intuitive to me now after gaining more skill in Blender. But his tutorials are worth the money and can translate to Blender with out to much trouble. If you need any help just let me know.

 Thank you for the link - I never thought to look for tutorials on youtube - I'm going to root around there. . .

 RV your way beyond Fugazi's tuts ;-) and I don't think Silo can do anything blender cant lol

at leather-guy is a couple of addons that can help ~ mesh lint will find over 90% of problems in any mesh (think its in trunk now not sure,google it)

and there was/is a addon to make sure the mesh is ready for 3d printing (no internal faces/watertight etc) "think" it had something to do with shapeways [ little interest in 3d printing but don't like to fall too far behind lol ] try a search at blenderartists for more info

(seen the post on poser too so) there is lots of ways to get what you want  the displacement map is probably the LAST way I'd choose although defiantly easier lol

if you want to do a quick sketch I'll have a go at making the mesh for you and a few words etc on how I did it [so you can do the hard ones ] bear in mind if you draw a X mm line and your printer can only do X+1 mm we'll have a problem rofl

Agree with Heddheld that meshlint is a great add-on to have in Blender it is like spell check for modeling it is a great tool and if I am not mistaken that video link I posted does mention shapeways and in the similar video that Youtube tends to post when you are viewing vids will have several others that reference shapeways as well.

Good Luck