29/03/2025
By Anar on 29/03/2025, 07:36
Back in 2019 I discovered Rocket3F and loved it right away.
It then became my favorite 3D modeler, especially for everything organic, because of its very powerful Subdivision tools.
And I loved it so much that I bought myself a Pro V1 license.
Until I changed my laptop for a new one...
12/05/2020
By Anar on 12/05/2020, 15:09
I love SketchUp and use it for most of my 3D projects.
But there are tasks that I prefer to do in some other softwares.
Microsoft's 3Dbuilder is one that I use very often.
14/05/2019
By Anar on 14/05/2019, 14:10
SmoothTeddy is a old (2003) small 3D sketching app developped by Takeo Igarashi that can produce simple organic shapes.
It's UI is minimalist and kid oriented, making it a perfect 3D modeling toy for children.
The drawback is... there is no way to export your Teddies.
Really no way ? Let's have a look...
13/05/2019
By Anar on 13/05/2019, 14:00
Recently Frenchy Pilou (no need to introduce) told me about MagicaVoxel, a free voxel modeler. I was curious so I had a look.
There are people making incredible stuff out of it !
But how does it behave with R3F ?
Can it be useful in the modeling process and how to go from one software to the other ?
12/05/2019
By Anar on 12/05/2019, 13:49
After being curious about what the Rocket3F paid version could bring me, I finally decided to buy it.
I will describe more in detail what the Pro version of Rocket3F has to offer in this post.
11/05/2019
By Anar on 11/05/2019, 14:40
I recently tried Rocket3F (a sudivision modeler) and loved it right away !
As it says, it's "Fast, Fun and Friendly" to use.
In this post I will tell you a bit more about it...
17/02/2017
By Anar on 17/02/2017, 11:59
I performed a lot of tests in the past with the available free or open-source photogrammetry solutions available.
And yesterday I tested the new Regard3D version so I think it's time to show you these "never published" tests.
16/02/2017
By Anar on 16/02/2017, 01:24
It's been a while since I wanted to write something about the photogrammetry solutions and pipelines that I've been testing.
Here is an attempt to cover this vast subject and try making it understandable and easy to follow for everyone...
09/12/2016
By Anar on 09/12/2016, 01:58
I know that I haven't published much these days (months... year).
Because most of the time I have nothing to say or just nothing enough exciting to share (IMHO). Or just because (and most probably) because I'm just too lazy to publish my experiments...
But then I felt in love !
And my new lover's name is Neobarok...
24/02/2014
By Anar on 24/02/2014, 12:06
I recently found a very usefull tool on Thingiverse that lets you check your Gcode file before sending it to the printer.
So I decided to give it a try...
12/02/2014
By Anar on 12/02/2014, 19:30
Yesterday I had some little spare time between two projects so I decided to train myself at using Meshmixer and Sculptris.
I had no precise idea of what to do before I reminded a famous René Magritte painting from 1934 that would be a perfect subject for Meshmixer.
Along with a bit of Sculptris, I thought it should be possible to achieve a good result in a short time.
In just as little as 3 hours of time I had a new sculpture ready to be printed...
08/10/2013
By Anar on 08/10/2013, 13:22
I've been using MeshMixer since the very first release to mix some 3D models together.
Since then, MeshMixer has become an Autodesk product and is still under development.
I decided to give the last release a try and to have a closer look at the new features and especially the ability to create supports for 3D printed models...
26/09/2013
By Anar on 26/09/2013, 15:51
DS Mechanical lacks some important tools that his big brother Spaceclaim has.
One of them is the ability to create text and annotations.
Someone on the forum asked about how to carve text in a model in DS Mechanical.
Having a look at the answers given there I was just amazed at how complex the different solutions were...
While it's so simple when using the SketchUp "Text" tool !
25/09/2013
By Anar on 25/09/2013, 17:26
I started to test and evaluate how SketchUp and DesignSpark Mechanical can work together.
And as I said in my previous post they seem to work together pretty well.
But during my tests I found out they quiet don't manage groups and components the same way leading in some problems...
By Anar on 25/09/2013, 10:33
This is a great news for all SketchUp lovers like me !
Since Monday 16 September we, the 3D community, have a new and free (but not open-source) 3D software to play with : DesignSpark Mechanical.
And it works especially well with SketchUp models !
14/11/2011
By Anar on 14/11/2011, 09:53
Now that you understand what drawing with Gcode really means, you know that only vectors can be turned into stroke paths.
In a vector graphic editor such as Inkscape you can fill a closed path, but that filling will only exist on your screen.
Even if you tell Inkscape to fill in some path, you will only get the path's outline plotted when converted into Gcode instructions. That's because only the outline is a path but the filled area isn't.
So if we want our filled areas to be pen-plotted, we must first find a way to convert them into stroke paths.
Let's see how...
25/10/2011
By Anar on 25/10/2011, 10:09
It took me a lot of time, web searches, trials and errors to find a way to convert a bitmap image into a nice Gcode tool path.
I have tried many things including extruding a greyscale image into a 3D mesh and then extract its first slice using Axon/Skeinforge.
But this method, like many others, produced very poor results...
...until I found out there is a pen-plotter project for the Makerbot called "Unicorn".
13/04/2011
By Anar on 13/04/2011, 14:27
Doing searches on the web, I found that little python script.
It's aimed to print lampshades from grayscale images on a Makerbot.
If it works on a Makerbot it should also work on a Rapman. So let's try that...