As one of the first consumer-oriented 3D printing services and France’s first official reseller of MakerBot and Mcor 3D printers, leFabShop has built an extensive knowledge of 3D printing over the past few years. Now, the best of that experience has been squeezed into a 160 page book, Impression 3D Pas a Pas (3D Printing Step by Step), published by Hachette and on sale via Amazon.
The book – written by Samuel N. Bernier, creative director of le FabShop, Tatiana Reinhard, designer in his team, and Bertier, founder of the company – seeks to present different aspects of practical 3D printing from the designer/maker’s point of view.
“We wanted to look at the subject from the inside and give the reader’s information that really matters if he wants to start making,” says Bernier. “From my point of view, this book is complementary to all the others 3D printing books I’ve been reading. It won’t tell the same usual stories, while still providing the basic theory everyone should know when entering the world of 3D printing.”
The book shows many of the projects that leFabShop publishes on their popular Instructables page, making them accessible to a much wider and – as the book will eventually be available languages other than French (an English version is expected next year) – more international demographic (those interested in editing the book in another language can contact the team directly).
Through these experiences and a lot of iconographic and visual content, the team is going to detail some of their past projects to help readers learn how to 3D model, how to choose the best software (with a particular focus on Autodesk’s highly accessible 123D App suite) and the best technology for a specific project. “We present mostly French creators and we made sure to mostly present projects which will be a new discovery even for those familiar with the 3D printing world,” says Bernier, who bought and read every single 3D printing book currently on Amazon, in order to create something truly different and new.
For example, tutorials in the book teach how to modify and design models so that no supports or rafts are needed, or how to minimize and alter computer generated supports. Another impressive project featured in the book is “My 3D Printed Fiancée”, which was on display at Autodesk’s recent Pop-Up Gallery in Paris. It will provide a case study to teach how to slice a model in multiple parts to create a larger object.
LeFabShops’ gallery of fascinating projects is extensive and it shows its evolution from a purely maker-centric company to one that has been able to experiment with design and new product creation. Some time ago Bernier was featured in a well-known tech magazine for using 3D printing to replicate a broken Ikea Dentelle lamp. It took him 2 months with SolidWorks and, now, the book will show how that can be done in just a few minutes using Autodesk’s experimental parametric software, Shapeshifter.
“I’m very proud of the result and so is the team,” he concludes. “We’ve learned so much with 3D printing for the past years, that it would have been selfish not to share our little tricks. This book was a great opportunity offered to us by Hachette for continuing our work in getting the word out on 3D printing.”
