This video introduces the 3D printing plugin for SketchUp. It also explains what 3d printing is - so it’s a good starting point for those of us who’ve never looked into it. If you’re thinking of actually using this technology, my advice is to get in touch with your local university first. Many of them have rapid-prototyping machines sitting around doing nothing for 11 months of the year, and will be only too happy to have a “real life” project to get to grips with.
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One of the great UK companies, Foster and Partners has used 3d printing for some time. I believe that they have done most of their geometry creation in Bentley systems and had written some code to support it. We hope that our plugin for Sketchup makes it very practical for a wide audience to try out this technology. One of the great researchers in the field is Adrian Boyer at the University of Bath. For an interesting look at his work on making a 3d printer that can make itself see http://www.reprap.org. Please do feel free to contact us if you have any questions about CADspan and how to make 3d prints from Architectural data.
Charles Overy
Director, CADspan
http://www.cadspan.com
http://www.lgmmodel.com
CADspan is a great idea. We are currently 3d printing models from Google SketchUp with our own software that does the same thing as CADspan using 3ds files from SketchUp. As prices for the materials come down we’ll see a larger sector of 3d models being 3d printed. Rapid prototyping has benefited from it for years, but, soon enough other industries will be jumping on board. You can view some of our projects at 3dventures.com
Thanks for the link to your site. As you mention, other industries are jumping onboard. The idea is to eventually have a desktop unit in every Architectural office, but price of materials is prohibitive at present. A lot can be done with cardboard and sketchup too..