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About Subject: Stereo viewer and 3D printingDate: 2012-01-05 23:56:55From: John Thurston
Prompted by some postings here late last year, and then a
phone conversation with Don Lopp, I decided to take another
stab at a wide-angle viewer.
I started my usual method of hand holding glass where I
thought I'd like it to be. When I thought I had something, I
bored some holes in different bits of plywood and plastic to
hold things better. When I had done that and discovered how
minute changes in distance and alignment affected the view, I
decided that I would never get the precision I wanted with my
hand tools in the garage. I either had to break down and get
a mini-mill, or learn how to do solid modeling and have
something printed. The latter seemed like a faster course to
a completed product, so that's what I chose.
I have a lot of experience doing "old school" drafting (on
paper, with pencils, triangles, and ink) and none at all in
CAD. This made simply understanding the basic concepts of the
3D modeling applications difficult. Autodesk and Alibre both
offer 30-day trials of their applications ("Inventor" and
"Designer"). From a standing start and zero experience, it
took me 30 days to design and model the front half of a viewer.
For the printing, I shopped around a little bit (Ponoko,
Shapeways, iMaterialize...) and finally asked Ken Burgess of
Cyclopital3D to do the printing for me. His printer isn't the
highest-tech device, nor the highest precision. But his price
is reasonable, and I was comfortable knowing that he'd
understand what I was trying to do. I had my part in my hands
about a week after I submitted the .stl file.
The dimensions are spot on. One set of lenses slipped in
perfectly. The other set required just a very gentle sanding
of the opening to permit them to slip in. At this point,
there is no provision for holding a slide. It functions as a
stereo loupe for a slide laying on my light table.
Now I'm going to work on lens retention (so they don't slip
out as easily as they slip in!), and put some kind of finish
on it. Then, I'll decide if the design is good enough to
cause me to build the back half of the viewer.
The punch line is, in the niche world of MF3D, 3D printing is
going to be a _very_ cool tool to have at our disposal.
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us
phone conversation with Don Lopp, I decided to take another
stab at a wide-angle viewer.
I started my usual method of hand holding glass where I
thought I'd like it to be. When I thought I had something, I
bored some holes in different bits of plywood and plastic to
hold things better. When I had done that and discovered how
minute changes in distance and alignment affected the view, I
decided that I would never get the precision I wanted with my
hand tools in the garage. I either had to break down and get
a mini-mill, or learn how to do solid modeling and have
something printed. The latter seemed like a faster course to
a completed product, so that's what I chose.
I have a lot of experience doing "old school" drafting (on
paper, with pencils, triangles, and ink) and none at all in
CAD. This made simply understanding the basic concepts of the
3D modeling applications difficult. Autodesk and Alibre both
offer 30-day trials of their applications ("Inventor" and
"Designer"). From a standing start and zero experience, it
took me 30 days to design and model the front half of a viewer.
For the printing, I shopped around a little bit (Ponoko,
Shapeways, iMaterialize...) and finally asked Ken Burgess of
Cyclopital3D to do the printing for me. His printer isn't the
highest-tech device, nor the highest precision. But his price
is reasonable, and I was comfortable knowing that he'd
understand what I was trying to do. I had my part in my hands
about a week after I submitted the .stl file.
The dimensions are spot on. One set of lenses slipped in
perfectly. The other set required just a very gentle sanding
of the opening to permit them to slip in. At this point,
there is no provision for holding a slide. It functions as a
stereo loupe for a slide laying on my light table.
Now I'm going to work on lens retention (so they don't slip
out as easily as they slip in!), and put some kind of finish
on it. Then, I'll decide if the design is good enough to
cause me to build the back half of the viewer.
The punch line is, in the niche world of MF3D, 3D printing is
going to be a _very_ cool tool to have at our disposal.
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us