3-D printing in the Center For Digital Scholarship
Posted on October 3, 2013 in Uncategorized by Eric Lease Morgan
“my” library
The Libraries purchased a 3-D printer — a MakerBot Replicator 2X — and it arrived here in the Center For Digital Scholarship late last week. It can print things to sizes just smaller than a bread box — not very big. To make it go one feeds it a special file which moves — drives — a horizontal platform as well as a movable nozzle dispensing melted plastic. The “special file” is something only MakerBot understands, I think. But the process is more generalized than that. Ideally one would:
- use a CAD program to model a 3-D object
- convert the resulting CAD file to a MakerBot file
Alternatively, a person can:
- visit Thingiverse
- download one of their thousands of files
- convert the file to a MakerBot file
Another choice is to:
- visit TinkerCAD
- use their online software to design a model
- download the resulting file
- convert the file to a MakerBot file
Yet another choice is to:
- obtain 123D Catch for your iPhone
- use it to take many photographs of an object
- edit and clean-up the resulting 3-D image with 123D Catch online
- download the resulting file
- convert the file to a MakerBot file
The other day I downloaded a modeling program — 3-D Sculpt — for my iPad. Import a generic model. Use the tools to modify it. Save. Convert. Print.
To date I’ve only printed a bust of Michelangelo’s David and a model of a “library”. I’ve tried to print other sculptures but with little success.
How can this be used in a library, or more specifically, in our Center For Digital Scholarship? Frankly, I don’t know, yet, but I will think of something. For example, maybe I could print 3-D statistics. Or I could create a 3-D model representing the use of words in a book. Hmmm… Do you have any ideas?
