Now that we’ve opened up the history-based parametric modeling section of the forums, I will shamelessly cross-post this project here as well:
You can find more details, work-in-progress photos and even the original model in .shapr format in the HBPM side of the forums.
Looks nice! What’s your process for taking the files generated in S3D to the CNC machine? As someone who is trying to learn S3D for design fabrication I’m keen on developing a new workflow. I have been using illustrator and Carve up to this point.
Hi Crabtree Creative
I’ve been using S3D for three years for designs small and large for production on a CNC, 3D printer and occasionally laser cutting - oh and manual production too.
For the CNC my preferred workflow is to draw up the design in S3D, import into Fusion360 and use the CAM tools to generate the tool paths. I have only used S3D on an iPad to date which is such a flexible development environment,
I’d be interested to learn more of other workflows.
Thanks! The CAM for both the laser cutter I used for the acrylic endplates and the CNC router I used for the wooden bases worked the best from DXFs, so that’s what I generated. The best method to extract those was to create two planes that were dedicated for this, project the required bodies to them and then isolate and export the sketches that resulted from those projections as DXFs. I put everything in a single, normally hidden folder to make sure it’s not in the way. It’s a bit of a convoluted method but we’ll be working on simplifying this process, and it’s already a lot better in the parametric version as those projections are kept updated automatically. One thing that tripped me is that the DXFs had multiple overlapping lines when I projected the entire bodies and not just the nearest faces and that doubled the cutting time for the laser cutter (the CNC CAM was smarter than that).
sounds like a solid plan on your part. I was heavily conflicted between investing in S3D vs fusion360. the price point and user interface are what drew me over to S3D in the end. before this I have been using adobe illustrator for making 2D elevation views of my dimensional projects. illustrator is vector based so I can create things to scale and glean my measurements and angles from it. Not exactly its intended use case, but it has worked really well for me for a surprisingly wide range of projects.
Once I’m ready to go to the Cnc I will import my illustrator docs to Vectric’s Aspire program (Vcarve on crack) which allows me to generate the different tool path operations. I love that software for the most part. I don’t like having to pull out a PC to use it though. it’s a bit dated visually, but the toolset it great. it’s easy to set up simple operations like profile cuts, pocket cuts and peck drilling but it also has good 3D engraving and texture generating features as well.
If I could export projected sketches from my S3D models and have them retain their layer organization when being imported to Aspire of vcarve then that would be huge. one of the major downsides of using illustrator for the design part of the process is that I have yet to find a good way to keep the design elements separated by layer.
I have a 4x4 CNC machine and a Prusa 3D printer. I have also used plenty of laser cutters, wide format printers, flatbed printers, vinyl plotters, and a flatbed cutter.
Im pretty excited to learn more about S3D for stepping up my game. I have been intending to learn more about 3D modeling for years.
Sounds like a good plan! I would love to beta test features geared for digital fabrication processes. Im in a similar vein of work as the Bevelish creations guy who has done some tutorial videos for your software. I try to be heavily involved in the marker community, and I have already recommended a few people to give shapr3d a try. Ill have to try your method of exporting the DXF on a project and posting about it on social media.
That sounds great, thanks!
One thing I did not mention above and I realized you might be interested as well: for the laser cutter, the “CAM” used in that makerspace was Core Draw (with page & color presets that the cutter could interpret when fed to it via SVG), and for the CNC, they used Aspire. Since they have a machine pre-configured for these devices, there was always to be some handover and their processes were set up to deal with DXF, I did not spend time on figuring out if there were a more efficient way to get data from Shapr3D to the machines directly – if I had my own shop, I certainly would!
