Summary

This was one of the first projects I tried to tackle in 3-D design.

I used a high-resolution jpg file of my school's seal/logo/crest as the starting point, and wanted to create a 3-D printable version for our 3-D printer. I went through a process of converting the raster image to a vector image to a CAD programming language to a 3-D model, and then intended to combine these 3-D models together into a single one.

Once I got to the final step I did not know enough to succeed, and wound up putting it aside and coming back to it later when I learned more about working with solid shapes.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

MakerBot

                                            <p class="detail-setting printer"><strong>Printer: </strong>                     <div><p>MakerBot Replicator (5th Generation)</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting rafts"><strong>Rafts: </strong>                     <div><p>Yes</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting supports"><strong>Supports: </strong>                     <div><p>No</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting resolution"><strong>Resolution: </strong>                     <div><p>High</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting infill"><strong>Infill: </strong>                     <div><p>Default</p></div></p>                                                        <br>                        <p class="detail-setting notes"><strong>Notes: </strong>                    </p><div><p>I started with white plastic, then swapped to blue shortly after the print completed the backing plate and was printing just the raised details.</p></div>

How I Designed This

Start with a raster image

            <div><p>The higher the resolution, the better. The higher the contrast, the better; my source image was black and white.</p></div>                <p class="detail-title"><strong>Convert to SVG</strong></p>            <div><p>I used Inkscape's tracing tool.</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://inkscape.org/en/doc/tracing/tutorial-tracing.html">https://inkscape.org/en/doc/tracing/tutorial-tracing.html</a></p></div>                <p class="detail-title"><strong>Convert to OpenSCAD</strong></p>            <div><p>With this Inkscape extension:</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="/thing:25036">http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:25036</a></p><p>This could not work with shapes within shapes very well, so I had to run it several times with simpler versions of the original raster file (just the outside ring, just the outside text, just the inside ring, just the shield, just the inside text...) and combine those. This wouldn't have been an issue with a simpler starting source file.</p></div>                <p class="detail-title"><strong>Render to STL</strong></p>            <div><p>With OpenSCAD.</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.openscad.org/">http://www.openscad.org/</a></p></div>                <p class="detail-title"><strong>Use these in your CAD software of choice.</strong></p>            <div><p>I used SketchUp to combine the independent shapes and join them with a circular plate as a backing.</p></div>

Canterbury School Seal

Canterbury School Seal

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