You’ve got one week before you can attend the SpaceClaim webinar titled “SpaceClaim STL Prep for 3D Printing Module: 3D Printing Made Easy & Fast”. Alright, well it’s sort of a webinar for people who already own SpaceClaim Engineer, but I think it might be more of a product pitch for those who don’t. Either way, next Thursday, March 6th, 1:00 – 1:30pm (EST) | 6:00pm (GMT), you can learn about how to use SpaceClaim to prepare .stl files for 3D printing.
The webinar will cover the use of the 3D modeling software to analyze and clean up models to ensure that they’re watertight for 3D printing. They’ll also cover splitting 3D models into multiple parts for multi-material printing, as well as creating connecting features to print different parts that can be connected together. You’ll learn how to join .stl models together to solids, which is essential for me because I like attaching scans of my friends’ heads to the bodies of animals. Finally, you’ll be shown how to reduce file sizes and shell models to cut waste.
Of course, if you want to actually get anything out of the webinar, you’ll probably have to buy SpaceClaim. I believe that a single license for the software is almost $2,500 or you may be able to get a student license for about $50/year. It might be worth it, though, if you trust Daid on the Ultimaker Forums:
I’ve recently been using Spaceclaim for some modeling work:
It’s not cheap (I think a single floating license is something like 2k), but holy shit. It blows everything away.
Just to explain a totally ridiculous example. I made the dual-extrusion-mounting-aid in Spaceclaim: https://www.youmagin…on-mounting-aid
Well, I started out in FreeCAD, but FreeCAD was giving me all kinds of problems when I tried to adjust a few things and I could not get the top “fingers” attached like I wanted.
So I exported the model I had as STL. This model was all blocky, no chamfers. It did have the screw hole. In Spaceclaim, I could import this STL file. Spaceclaim detected the cylinders and with some assistant it turned those into actual cylinders. From that point on I could do anything I wanted to the model.
As Spaceclaim is not feature based (like Solidworks for example) I didn’t care that I did not have the origonal sketch or info. I could modify the model like I wanted. Add chamfers, move the screwhole a bit. Extend it to add the fingers. All extremely easy.
This is my new favorite modeling tool. Yes it’s super expensive. But I love it.
See a nice demo for yourself: http://www.youtube.c…h?v=44UNSrfU6As
I could do all of those things to my imported STL file without problems.
If you don’t want to pay the high price for the software, we reported in an earlier post that SpaceClaim Engineer may be somewhat similar to a free software that was released by RS Components called DesignSpark Mechanical. Unfortunately, it lacks some of important features, with Ultimaker user calinb pointing out:
It didn’t take long to discover the “catch” in the free deal. It doesn’t seem to permit the importation of any standard solid model formats. (It imports only .step but read-only, which is nearly worthless.) It also does not permit the export of standard solid models required for, say, injection mold manufacture. Geesh–even the free version of AutoCAD Inventor Fusion supports import and export of standard solid model formats, though the performance of the program leaves much to be desired.
DesignSpark seems fine for designing stuff for a personal 3D printer but I guess ya’ get what ya’ pay-for!
So, DesignSpark Mechanical may not be perfect for personal 3D printer users, but the webinar may not be as useful as it would be if you get your hands on the complete SpaceClaim package. You can register for the webinar here and report back to us!
Source: SpaceClaim
