Mini Guitar..

[andrew]

Straight off the M3, no finishing or fussing involved.  Just thought it came out kinda cool. 
A mini '72 Fender Strat..  About 8" tall carved from cedar.  Am jealous of you all with carve kings who can make real ones!

Attachments:

[Derek the Admin]

Pretty cool. Where'd ya find the file if ya don't mind me asking?

[andrew]

Here's a link to the .stl file on my dropbox:
www.dropbox.com/s/qtb78h09qh1tjtn/fender.stl?dl=0
Would love to see it if someone cuts it at a larger scale.

[Derek the Admin]

Thanks for the link.

[Bruce]

I just found out the new 3D Paint in the Windows 10 update (Part of the "Fall Creators Update") will open an .STL file. Good to know if you don't have any other software.

[mirthmgr]

Nov 13, 2017 4:28:22 GMT Bruce said:

I just found out the new 3D Paint in the Windows 10 update (Part of the "Fall Creators Update") will open an .STL file. Good to know if you don't have any other software.

I hadn't even thought to give Paint 3D a try. Turns out it can export to FBX, which you can upload to Fusion 360. It took some playing around to figure out how to do anything with the mesh once I got it imported. Here's what I ended up doing:
-Upload the FBX to Fusion
-Open the new file
-Enter the "Mesh" workspace (must be enabled in preferences under "Preview")
-Do any tweaking you want (Paint 3D is liberal with the triangles, so I think reducing and smoothing is in order)
-Return to the "Model" workspace
-Right-click the component and choose "Mesh to BRep" (it gave me a warning each time - if you're running a slower computer, this might be brutal)
-Save the file
-You can now create a new document and drag the file you just saved into it as a component (or use the file directly, but I found it easier to drag and drop so I wouldn't have to worry about setting my planes correctly in CAM)

Weird glitches/little notes I encountered:
-You have to enter the Mesh workspace before the "Mesh to BRep" option appears in the context menu. You don't have to do anything at all but jump right back to Model and it's there.
-Paint 3D has no concept of measurements. Objects imported into Fusion seem to be pretty small in scale (but large in triangle count).
-Paint 3D has Z as the front to back plane. I solved this by importing the file into a new project as a component, but you can also fix in CAM, of course.
-Once you convert to BRep, I don't see any way back, so be prepared to re-upload the FBX if you need to further tweak the mesh (or save all of your conversions until the end).
-Components that you drag from the data panel into a project are completely uneditable. You have to do all of the editing within the uploaded file. Nicely, once you edit the file, you can update the references in any other files you've included it in as a component, so you can be object-oriented.

I'm not sure how much practical use I'll find from Paint 3D (I spent all of 5 minutes in it), but it's definitely nice to have it as an option for creating organic forms. It's certainly not precision software, but it might be very handy for more artistic projects. I ended up with some interesting shapes playing around with the 3D doodle tools.

[aforww]

Curious, you can import an .STL into Fusion so not sure what benefit you get from going through paint first.

[mirthmgr]

Nov 13, 2017 10:22:12 GMT aforww said:

Curious, you can import an .STL into Fusion so not sure what benefit you get from going through paint first.

For me, I was thinking of starting in Paint and not an existing STL. For that, I'd definitely just import straight to Fusion.

[aforww]

Nov 13, 2017 13:31:15 GMT mirthmgr said:

Nov 13, 2017 10:22:12 GMT aforww said:

Curious, you can import an .STL into Fusion so not sure what benefit you get from going through paint first.

For me, I was thinking of starting in Paint and not an existing STL. For that, I'd definitely just import straight to Fusion.

Ahhhh ok. Lol

[andrew]

Hmm, will have to check that paint 3D out, didn't know it was a thing..

Another 3D 'Sculpting' tool out there is SculptGL found here: stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/
It's entirely browser based, and can create, import, export .stl's and a few other formats. Like your impression of Paint 3D, not sure how useful it would be in the real world but it's fun to play with. Like digital clay.

[mirthmgr]

Nov 13, 2017 14:30:15 GMT andrew said:

Hmm, will have to check that paint 3D out, didn't know it was a thing..

Another 3D 'Sculpting' tool out there is SculptGL found here: stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/
It's entirely browser based, and can create, import, export .stl's and a few other formats. Like your impression of Paint 3D, not sure how useful it would be in the real world but it's fun to play with. Like digital clay.

Ooh, I'm going to have to play with that one, too! They're very different in their approaches, but both simple enough to play without having to delve too deeply into the software. It's a nice brain break from Fusion and all of its numbers and precision.

[Derek the Admin]

Great info guys. Thanks for sharing.