From Wilbur to CAD

[allredwires]

I posted a picture much like this one on my Twitter account and someone asked how I did it. So here we go.

A little background:

I'm using FlashPrint because it came with my 3D printer and Rhinoceros 5.0 because I have it and it's the only 3D modeling/CAD software I've been able to wrap my head around. I downloaded and tried the same procedure with Cura and Blender since they're both freeware and it works. I'm not entirely comfortable with Blender so I wasn't able to get a render that I was personally happy with, but I'm confident it can be done.

On to the step by step stuff:



First, you want to create something in Wilbur. I made this little island and I'm rather fond of it. Click the Save icon and your typical pop up appears and is preset to PNG surface. Huzzah, name the file and hit the Save button. We are now done with Wilbur for this project.



This is a slicer software for turning models into a set of instructions a 3D printer can understand. It also has a helpful feature for saving things as either an .STL or .OBJ which 3D Modeling and CAD software can understand. This is what we're using today. Click the load button (or in other software open a file) and select your PNG surface that you saved from Wilbur.



This is where the magic happens. When you select the PNG surface image, this pop up appears and asks you to decide how big the object is going to be (Width and Depth) and how tall it's going to be (maximum height).

There's two modes to choose from, Lighter is Higher and Darker is Higher. Lighter is higher will produce an object where mountains are mountains. Darker is higher will invert the object so that your left with sort of a cake pan of your mountains.



Hit OK and this is what you get. Note that I shrunk the size down to 70x70 mm later because Rhino was freezing on me at later steps.

[allredwires]

And Part two, because I can totally not screw up my first post... yup.



Once you have your object, you can go up to File and select Save As. You want to pick .STL, .OBJ from the dropdown menu and name your file. We're now done with the slicer software. This is also the point where you can hit print and create the instructions for the 3D printer, but that's another topic.



And now we open our 3D modeling software and import the .STL file we just created.



This is what shows up after your computer stops thinking for a bit. Currently shown in wireframe mode.



Now this is specific to Rhino and how I get the nice old time parchment look to my pics. I switch to perspective view, click on the little triangle next to the heading, and select Artistic.



And after some waiting for the computer to hopefully not freeze up, the results. Take a screen capture, paste into MS Paint, and crop to taste.

I hope this has been helpful and inspires people!

[johnvanvliet]

if you want to use blender i did these using that
the basics are rather simple for just a heightmap


import image as planes
subdivide to about the res of the heightmap
add a displacement modifier

- something i was working on this afternoon







now this is using the node editor and that can be a bit complex

[ChickPea]

Fantastic work on this!

[allredwires]

Thank you!

And I love that crater-scape Johnvanvliet!

[johnvanvliet]

real data from the dawn mission to Ceres
-- mostly

there is a bit of artistic and unscientific license taken

but i use blender for this