Over the course of my internship, I was able to take advantage of many of the SOLIDWORKS training classes offered through CATI. A combination of in-person and online courses prepared me to achieve both my CSWA and CSWP certifications. These certifications are not only a source of pride, but prove I have valuable CAD skills I can take into my future employment opportunities.

A custom Y-block wrench makes it easy to remove tight fittings on the Stratasys F370.

My Role

My role with CATI primarily revolved around the hardware side of the business – working with 3D printers and 3D scanners. From printer repair tools to custom-printed room placards, to organizational tools, I printed a lot this summer. The tools I designed and printed included a lockout key for an Objet printer, a Y-block wrench for the Stratasys F123 series printer, and a belt tensioning tool. These tools were printed using FDM technology with a Stratasys F370. Each of these tools taught me a different lesson about designing for 3D printing, such as the impact of slice height on surface finish and part strength or how tolerances can affect the fitment of moving parts.

One of the many custom room placards printed using the J55 Polyjet printer.

The Fun Stuff

More decorative parts such as employee name plates were printed using PolyJet technology on either the Stratasys J55 or J850. This technology can create parts with impressive colors, textures, and finishes, making it an excellent choice for design visualization. For example, the custom room placards I printed needed to contain the correct Pantone colors used in the CATI logo. This took some research and experimentation to get right but produced parts with highly accurate color recreation. These projects taught me more about the post-processing required to achieve a desired finish and texture using PolyJet printers.

This workstation was designed to accommodate the various tasks required to post-process Origin One parts.

Everything Else (More Fun Stuff)

Outside of these projects, I also worked a lot with the new Stratasys Origin One printer. I learned a lot about the new materials available with this printing system, some of which have incredible properties with regards to heat deflection. It was interesting working with my colleagues to develop procedures for working with an unfamiliar group of resin 3D printing materials. This provided me with opportunities to practice problem solving and workflow optimization in cooperation with a team.

I participated in a few scanning services, both on-site and in the office. Through these services I learned how different companies use 3D scanning for reverse engineering and quality inspection. During an on-site scanning service, I learned about how the scanning workflow changes to accommodate larger subjects – in this case, the axle of a bulldozer and an entire bucket attachment. I was able to apply this experience on a reverse engineering project where I scanned, reverse engineered, and designed clip-on project labels for our standardized project tray system.

During my time with CATI, I developed a lot of practical and hands-on engineering skills that are often overlooked in a college education. An example of this is the importance of rapid revisions. Many of my projects went through many iterations, and I learned from each one and improved the project as a result. The knowledge and experience I was able to obtain over the course of the summer was beneficial in preparing me for an engineering job in a way that cannot be taught in a classroom.

Aaron Fanjoy
Engineering Services Intern
Computer Aided Technology

After a few years of running our machine, I am a big fan. Step by step instructions for maintenance are given right on the main screen. The rotary table eliminates the X-Y motion of the typical gantries which makes build speeds so much faster. From a technical perspective, it’s everything I hoped it would be.

And if you need more convincing, here are five reasons to upgrade to the J55 Prime

1. Turns Design Ideas into 3D printed Reality

Accurate color with PANTONE matching. Texture realism. Excellent resolution. You can create superior quality parts with incredible visual, tactile and sensory capabilities providing results that look, feel and function like the real thing.

2. Streamlines Your Design Process

Go from render to reality faster with a simple design-to-print workflow that lets you import CAD models directly into GrabCAD Print. The user-friendly design incorporates a touchscreen interface and makes it easier than ever to get printed parts in your hand.

3. Keeps Productivity at Your Elbow

A solution fit for the office or studio space featuring an easy-maintenance air filter for odor-free operation, compact design, and a unique rotating print tray for ultra-quiet printing.

4. Prevents Wasting Time on Maintenance

An easy-to-service, reliable platform with a routine cleaning wizard and automated print head calibration means less time spent maintaining and more time printing.

5. Realizes Real Business Impact Faster than Ever

The J55 Prime is affordable enough for you to start saving on costs right away – take advantage of 80% less cost per part and the ability to create high-quality models in just one day.

Check out this link for the J55 and here for its close cousin the J35.

Jeremy Marvin
Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology

But adhering to hardware limitations can compromise the artistic intent of a designer when printing a prototype meant to show off a product’s color, material, and finish. This is where another methodology, pioneered by Stratasys, comes into play. That methodology can be better referred to as AMFD, or Additive Manufacturing For Design.

Built on the foundation of over 30 years of leading in the world of additive manufacturing, the latest Stratasys PolyJet J series machines afford product designers and artists nearly unrestricted access to seeing their visions come to life. That is to say, they can leverage what was once a technology relegated to the world of “this is how something should work” into “this is how something should look and feel”. Photorealism is absolutely crucial to being able to meet that challenge.

The first requirement for photorealism is color. In much the same way that inkjet printers deposit droplets of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink onto paper to form images, Stratasys’ J series machines rely on the same process, albeit in many layers, to create full color 3D prints. By full color, they are capable of a gamut of 500,000 colors. That’s a lot. Having a broad spectrum of colors is valuable, but it is even more important that the machine can make them in a consistent manner. As Stratasys is the industry standard for 3D printing, so too is X-Rite in the industry of color management. In partnership, X-Rite has developed comprehensive color profiles to accurately ensure that what a designer has envisioned and defined with their software is what prints out of the machine. For the even more critical color applications, designers can use X-Rite spectrophotometers to create custom profiles to their specific machine. Additionally, the machines are validated by Pantone, meaning critical spot color accuracy is available out of the box to meet any brand standards or other specifications a part may require. Prior to the J series printers, this was a functionality only seen in 2D art and publication.

On the topic of using software to design photorealistic color 3D prints, Stratasys has partnered with Keyshot. Another leader in its respective industry, Keyshot is synonymous with photo-rendering. It is used by the biggest companies in creating true-to-life renders for publication and animations for the big screen. Many product design companies already have Keyshot power-users on staff. For those that are just diving into using color in their design process, the software is as powerful as it is intuitive. Keyshot can import native CAD files onto which a library of premade materials can be applied. If that library isn’t big enough, it’s easy to import digital images and labels to be mapped onto the geometry. Using a graphical flow-chart of nodes, any material can be fine-tuned to meet specific requirements. Where Keyshot stands above the competition is the ability to export 3MF files with the color textures baked in that can then be natively imported into GrabCAD Print for simple print setup.

Keyshot is more than just a means to apply colors and textures. Photorealism in the context of 3D objects requires an additional consideration. Just like anything that can be picked up and touched, light casts shadows and causes specular highlights on shiny surfaces of 3D prints. Let’s take those graphical material nodes in Keyshot referred to in the previous paragraph. It’s possible to take detail in a texture and use a displacement map to generate physical geometry coordinated with the color textures. With Stratasys machines, today, it’s possible to print tactile wood grain, cloth, and knurling.

An iterative design process is fundamental to product development. When it once took weeks to outsource a prototype for hand sculpting, painting, or even tailoring, can now be done with some design tweaks in CAD and Keyshot and sending a print to run overnight. And that’s the entire workflow. Seamlessly moving from CAD to Keyshot to GrabCAD Print. That is the nature of 3D printing with the Stratasys J series machines. It’s all about streamlining one’s process and removing the traditional boundaries between conceptualizing designs and bringing them to life with photorealistic 3D printing.

Simon Pinter
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology

When the Digital Anatomy Printer first came out its offerings were leaps and bounds ahead of anything available on the 3D printing market in its ability to replicate complex bone structures for authentic haptic feedback during practice procedures. However, the software used to process Digital Anatomy parts would soon receive an update.

With GrabCAD Print update 1.43, the ability to change the proximal and distal regions of a long bone part was added. This update brought an even greater anatomical accuracy to long bone parts. This update also added the option to incorporate “strain relief” reinforcements in the long bone part to prevent cracking when drilling or inserting screws into the printed part.

An area that had not been addressed yet was printing bones with the simulated marrow and spongy bone visible. To interact with the simulated spongy bone and simulated marrow internal structures required either sawing the bone in half or pausing the print job. Feeling the simulated marrow was something I was very interested in when Computer Aided Technology received their Digital Anatomy Printer, so I decided to use the “pause the print job” method. However, I wanted two halves of a bone that would fit together seamlessly, so I had to calculate the exact slice to pause each half of the bone and then stay up late into the night to pause the print job. Below are some screenshots from GrabCAD Print that helped me calculate the layer height to pause. I used sliced bone parts set to “glossy” in model options to get the layer height of the desired stopping points.

These parts also had to be printed with the bumpy parts of the bone facing down, which doubled the amount of support material used and increased cleaning time. While this solution did work, it was not something I would expect anyone else to attempt. Below is the results from one of the printed halves. Notice the large support structure under each of the parts.

Here is a time-lapse of these bone parts being printed. The different layers of the bone are very visible in the time-lapse.

The 1.46 update to GrabCAD Print added the ability to do 80% of this work through two features made for Digital Anatomy bone printing.

• Cross Section: This feature allows the user to identify a face on a bone (ideally a flat face) and an off-set distance and the bone will print with a “window” into the internal structure of the bone. This “window” can be coated in a clear material or left open to the air.
• Bone Analyzer: This feature allows for the internal structure of the bone to be previewed slice-by-slice, allowing for greater anatomical accuracy. This is also a great way to double-check that the Cross Section feature is working as intended.

To print two halves of a bone like I attempted before, the bone part will still need split it into two chunks before importing into GrabCAD Print. After the bone part has been split, the rest of the work can be done within GrabCAD Print. (I think a future update may allow you to do the splitting yourself, which would make the process even more simple!)

With the two bone halves in GrabCAD Print, start by classifying them as long bone parts.

Once classified, use the new “Cross Section” tool to identify the flat face for the internal structure to be visible. Uncheck the “Cover the opening with clear material” to print the part with touchable simulated marrow and spongy bone. Keeping the box checked will print a clear layer over the opening so the internal structure is visible, but not interactive.

To double-check that the part will print correctly, use the “Bone Analyzer” tool. This will give a sliced preview of the print job. The bottom layer of the print job has a yellow core, which is used to identify the bone marrow internal structure.

Compare this preview to a part that hasn’t gone through the Cross Section tool. The very bottom layer is a solid blue color, which is the material used on the outer shell of the bone.

With just a few clicks, these bone parts are able to be printed with visible internal structures and with the flat face down, saving support material and time! No more calculating the slice to pause the printer at and taking averages of the time to print per slice. Another big advantage of this method is the ability to print the outer bone material as “glossy”, which saves support material, reduces post processing and creates a better surface finish.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Computer Aided Technology blog for more updates on the Digital Anatomy printer and other Stratasys products.

Until next time!

Kelsey Gabel
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology, Inc

Next you will need to remove the 4 screws securing the front panel to the printer. You will find these by opening the lid of your printer and looking along the top. They may be Flat head or Allen key. You may need to open your material draw a little if the panel gets stuck.

When you get the front panel off you get to see the wonder that is the inside of a Desktop 3D Printer! What you are looking for is on the left-hand side of the printer.

To get a better look at what Mother Board take out the overflow container. Be careful if there is any material in there so that you don’t spill inside the printer or get it on your hands.

In early V1 and V2 models you will find a Mother board that looks like this :

Aaeon Board V1/V2

The chances of you seeing this board is slim as they were in early models of the printer. What you are most likely to see is this board:

Protech V1/V2/V3

You also may see a board that replaced the Aaeon and Protech Boards for a short time .

Adlink Embedded, Replacment for Aaeon and Protech

Additionally on new production V3’s you will find the new Nex650. This only works in printers that were manufactured with this board so you cannot upgrade to it.

Nex650 only in New V3s that originally had it

Even though this seems like a lot of information to know don’t worry. All you need to be able to do is know where to find and how to identify the Mother Board. This will help us as technicians better problem shoot any issues you may have with your Polyjet 3D printer and get us one step closer to getting you back up and printing.

As always if you ever have any questions reach out to us. We have a great staff of technicians with experience in various types of 3D printing that are available for you. We can be reached in a few ways, through our email SUPPORT@CATI.COM , by phone 1-888-285-2284, and via our live chat Live Chat. We are open Monday – Friday 8am to 6pm EST. However you choose to reach out we always look forward to hearing from you.

Ryan Carpe
Field Service Engineer
Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Within GrabCAD Print, GelMatrix isn’t a selectable material. When hovering over the material, GrabCAD Print notes that GelMatrix can only be used as a Digital Material. That means GelMatrix cannot be printed on its own, it must be combined with another material. However, to see the material on its own we can use the dynamic nozzle test.

Under normal operating conditions, the Polyjet print heads don’t simply follow a horizontal path during printing but instead slightly offset themselves in case there are any clogged or faulty nozzles. This is visible in the set of still photos from a time-lapse shows a line in the model shifting and disappearing throughout the print.

This process of shifting the print heads throughout the print does not occur in the dynamic nozzle test. This allows for the condition of the print heads to be investigated. The faulty & clogged nozzles will show up in a much more visible way compared to the normal pattern test. In the image below the pink rectangle has some missing nozzles in the top half.

Something very unique about this test is the ability to print and see materials that are never intended to be printed on their own. There are many materials in the Polyjet line-up that cannot be printed as a stand-alone material, including RGD515, RGD531, RGD535 (the materials used for DigitalABS), VeroUltraClear, the DAP materials TissueMatrix, BoneMatrix and our topic for today, GelMatrix. In the dynamic nozzle test above the material on the far right is the GelMatrix material.The GelMatrix material showed up so liquidy in the dynamic nozzle test I thought it was uncured. The consistency was similar to Jello and was very transparent. Below is a close-up.

The digital material that uses GelMatrix is known as GelSupport in the Blood Vessel section in GrabCAD Print.

GelSupport is a complex material that has a few different components. Where GelSupport borders other materials on the print job, a mix of GelMatrix and 706 support material is used. That layer of GelSupport takes up around 1mm of the model. After that a soft mixture of GelMatrix with Agilus30 Clear chunks is used for the rest of the GelSupport. I have used the material in blood vessel models as well as heart models and in both cases it is extremely useful!

THE BLOOD VESSEL MODEL

GelMatrix was created for blood vessel models. Before the advent of GelMatrix, printing a thin tubular structure with bends and curves was not feasible. A pipe-cleaning device could be used, but with a flexible thin-walled tube the pipe-cleaner would surely break the model. Water pressure could be used, but the pressure was likely to build in the thin-walled section and burst the model. A soaking tank with caustic soda could be used, but the amount of time it would take for the liquid to penetrate a long narrow tube would be astronomical. With GelMatrix, light water pressure can be used in one end of the model and the GelMatrix will allow the water to flow through the thin-walled tube and break out of the other end. The GelMatrix is marbled within the vascular cavity so there is still 706 support to clean out, but the process is made much more doable with GelMatrix. Below is a video going through the process of cleaning out a blood vessel part.

THE HEART MODEL

GelMatrix can also be used in models with large cavities. In the case of this heart model I have printed with and without GelMatrix. The purely 706 support material model took about 1 week to clean. With so many fragile parts and cavities I was wary to rely exclusively on pressurized water. I opted for manually removing the large chunks of support, soaking the part overnight, using pressurized water to removed the saturated support material and make room for the unsaturated support material to soak the next evening. This cycle repeated for 5 days. The heart models then had to soak in water to help remove the film. Finally, the models had to sit in the open to allow the absorbed liquid to slowly leave the model. All in all, this process from print to finished product could take up to 2 weeks.

With the GelMatrix models, the large internal cavities were filled with GelSupport. The models relied heavily on the “part priority” option for assemblies in GrabCAD. This way the GelSupport portion of the model could overlap with other parts of the model and not interfere with the print by setting the GelSupport portion at the lowest priority. The GelSupport is very easily removed with pressurized water, allowing each heart model to be cleaned in about 20 minutes. These models may also need some time to allow any absorbed liquid to leave the model, but not nearly as long as the soaked models. This results in a finished model in hours instead of days. A video detailing the cleaning process can be found below.

Until next time!

Kelsey Gabel
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology, Inc

Required tools:

3 mm Allen Wrench

Flat Head Screwdriver

Instructions:

There are 8 screws that hold the back panel in place. Depending on the age of the printer, the screws may be flat head or 3 mm hex. Remove all 8 screws to take off the back panel.

With the back panel removed the hinges can be seen.

There are six 3 mm hex screws on each of the two hinges. Unscrew and remove the bottom two screws on each hinge. The rest of the screws can be loosened but do not need to be removed. As the hinge plate can slide in behind the screw heads.

With the screws undone the lid of the printer can be removed by opening the lid and pulling straight up. Lay the lid down on it’s top to reveal the screws that attach the hinges to the lid.

There are four 3 mm hex screws on each of the hinges. To remove the hinges, unscrew all 4 screws from the bracket.

Position the new hinges onto the lid and install the 4 screws with the 3 mm Allen wrench.

With the new hinges attached, lift the lid back onto the printer while aligning the hinges to the screws that are still on the back of the printer. The lid can be heavy and hard to lift. It can be easier to have two people lift the lid and align the screws.

With the lid back in place, the two bottom 3 mm hex screws can be re-installed on each of the hinges. With the bottom screws in place the top four can be tightened down.

Open and close the lid to be sure it can move smoothly.

Put the back panel onto the printer and reinstall all 8 screws.

This should keep your printer operating properly! Feel free to reach out to us at CATI if you need further assistance with anything Stratasys 3D Printing.

Kim Broderick
Field Service Engineer
Computer Aided Technology, Inc. 

Circular Build Platform

The most defining characteristic of the J55 is the circular build tray. This is a departure from previous Stratasys Polyjet machines and brings great promise for becoming an industry staple. Previous Polyjet machines and indeed most every machine in the industry relies on a stationary build platform and a mobile print head. The J55 is the opposite, with a stationary print head at the top of the machine and a rotating build platform. Technically the print head does move to reach the inner, middle and outer swaths of the build tray, but the unidirectional movement is expected to reduce the maintenance compared to previous polyjet machines. The rotating build platform also reduces wasted movements in the machine, leading to faster print jobs.

Maximum Build Area

Visualizing the build area on a circular build tray is a bit more difficult, but comparing it to something known makes it much easier. The first thing to note is that the print area isn’t a circle, but actually an annulus (a 2D ring-shape, like a flat donut). The best comparison I could think of is a 12 inch vinyl record.

The inner radius of the annulus is 60mm, which is very close to the radius of the label on a 12in vinyl. The outer radius of the annulus is 229mm, which is about 50% more than the radius of the vinyl, which has a radius of 150mm. For those using the Imperial system, that’s about an 18in outer diameter and a 4.5in inner diameter for the print area.

The height of the build volume is 7.362 inches or 18.7 cm, which leads to 1340 in³ or 22000cm³ for maximum volumes. Those volumes don’t mean much on their own, so I calculated the theoretical largest rectangle the J55 can hold. The dimensions of the largest rectangle are 145mm by 177mm by 187mm (or 5.70in by 6.96in by 7.36in).

Removable Build Tray

While removing the tray with a bunch of tall print jobs on them is not recommended (the build tray is around 15lbs), the ability to remove the tray from a polyjet machine was a feature only seen on the 260 line previously. This makes scraping the support residue off the tray a breeze.

Layer Thickness

Different from other Polyjet printers which have multiple layer thickness settings, the J55 simplifies with a single layer thickness of 18.75 µm. For context, that’s about the width of 4 human red blood cells in a line.

Simultaneous Jetting Materials

The J55 makes it easy to remember the number of simultaneous model materials being jetted in a print. Any guesses? It’s indeed five! Technically there are 6 jetted materials including support material.

Full Color Capability

With VeroPureWhite, VeroMagentaVivid, VeroCyanVivid, VeroYellowVivid and VeroClear loaded in the J55 there are nearly 500,000 color combinations! Even though there isn’t VeroBlack loaded, the J55 allows for colors to be mixed to create black, allowing for full-color printing. The J55 also brings PANTONE certified colors to the mix and the newest version of the slicer software, GrabCAD Print, allows for X-Rite color profiles to be selected, bringing an even greater color accuracy to the J55.

These are just a few of the advantages of the J55 solution. More broadly, adopters of the J55 can expect to see:

• Stunning print quality with full-color capabilities. This includes transparent prints and simulated wood, leather, and other textures.
• Reduced time to market with the easy-to-use interface GrabCAD Print software and overnight/remote printing capabilities.
• A quieter and smaller footprint, allowing the J55 to be in the office safely and unobtrusively.

If you have any questions about the J55, feel free to reach out! Happy printing

Kelsey Gabel
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology, Inc

The Good

Physical Accuracy: One of the first part I printed off the machine was a human heart model. I was stunned to see the accuracy of the heart! The model had the Chordae Tendinae, Tricuspid valve, Mitral valve, Aortic valve, Atriums and Ventricles, all with a tissue-like feel to them. Cleaning the support material off of the hearts after printing had me in awe of the fact that the heart I printed was a model of a nameless human being’s heart with all their veins and uniqueness.

Anatomical Accuracy: While I have never felt a human heart before, the people over at Medtronic did a study of some of the Digital Anatomy materials against porcine equivalent tissues. The study concluded the Digital Anatomy materials showed similar compliance and failure modes to tissue. Since the myocardium is printed slightly transparent, different anatomical elements can be viewed in context of their surroundings.

GrabCAD Print Anatomy Selection: Along with the heart, the ability to easily call out different anatomical elements in the slicer software GrabCAD Print allowed the heart to have an anatomically accurate feeling. Various tissue and bone elements can be chosen with more variables within each element, including stiffness, porosity, degeneration, among other options. GrabCAD Print has more than 100 anatomical options at the moment with many more on the way.

Gel Matrix: For anyone who has tried to print internal cavities on a Polyjet, cleaning those cavities without a soluble support knows how time-consuming it can be. Even with soluble support, the parts can require long soaking times. With the new Gel Matrix material, support from very fine-featured internal structures can be removed in a matter of seconds! I was able to clean the ventricles and atriums of the heart model very easily. Gel matrix is really stunning and I wish I had it around earlier in the year when I made some parts for my Settlers of Catan blog post.

The Bad

High Quality Printing Mode Missing: Currently (July 2020), the Digital Anatomy printer cannot print anatomical parts at the J750 High Quality 14-micron layer thickness. I’m not sure if this is a technical restriction or something that can be added in the future. For now the minimum layer thickness is the High Mix mode 27-microns, which is still an incredibly impressive layer thickness at about 0.001 inch! The printer can still print non-anatomical parts in High Quality.

Switching Materials: On any 3D printer, swapping materials will generate waste. However, the size of the J750 and requirement for no previous materials to be in the lines make the swap use more material than normal. Our machine lost 600-800 grams of material per cartridge. With 3600 gram cartridges, that ends up being somewhere between 20-25% loss during the swap. This is fine if the materials stay the same after the swap, but becomes an issue is if the printer switches between a full-color setup and an anatomy set-up frequently.

Short Shelf Life: The new Digital Anatomy materials offer unprecedented anatomical accuracy, but most of them have a shorter shelf life than other Polyjet materials. Most Polyjet materials are guaranteed a minimum shelf life of 8 months from Stratasys. Tissue matrix is guaranteed a 5-month minimum shelf life and Gel matrix is guaranteed a 4-month minimum shelf life. This shouldn’t matter if the printer is being used effectively. For some perspective, the Tissue Matrix that CATI received had an expiration 7 months out and the Gel Matrix expired 6 months out.

The Quirky

Tissue Matrix Cartridge Size: For some reason, the tissue matrix are only filled 3100 grams, but come in the standard 3600 grams. (For more information on Tissue Matrix, check out this post from Cullen).

GrabCAD Coloring: When assigning anatomical elements to parts in GrabCAD, their color within the program does not usually match the printed color. This helps distinguish the elements since most of the anatomical tissues share a transparent tissue color.

Sticker: The DAP sticker has a different reflectivity than the J750 sticker (this has no effect on print quality).

As with any first impressions, things may improve over time so be sure to check back for updates.

Until next time!

Kelsey Gabel
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology, Inc

As with previous blog posts, we will be using The Settlers of Catan for inspiration in using our 3D textures. This week will cover the creation of a “wool” piece with sheep on a lake, shown digitally below.

This piece combines a realistic water texture with a hand-drawn circular hill texture. The process is very similar to the “clay” pieces created last time, but with an added layer of complexity.

To start, find a realistic water texture (or whatever realistic texture you desire). There are a few search terms that can be used, including:

• Displacement map
• Height map
• Bump map
• Texture map

An important factor to keep in mind is whether your image is a “seamless” image. Here is a side-by-side of a tiled image (left) and a tiled seamless image (right).

A seamless image will be “seamless” when tiled against itself. That doesn’t mean the seamless image is perfect by any means. The seamless image above has a dark spot that shows up in each repeat of the image, which can ruin the illusion of the seamless image. This is all important to know because SOLIDWORKS will tile texture images. If a regular image is chosen for a life-like texture, the seams of the image become very visible. In the example below, a displacement map of water is being applied to the piece. The image below shows a piece that was created without a seamless water texture.

If the texture image chosen is large enough that the image doesn’t tile, the image won’t need to be seamless. In SOLIDWORKS, the size of the image applied as a texture is noted in this pink-blue box created in the “texture” property manager.

With all that in mind, including the word “seamless” in the search or restricting the search to larger files should prevent any poor tiling behavior in SOLIDWORKS.

To start the wool piece, the hill texture was added to the part. This texture was created in GIMP and is shown below. The process of creating these is outlined in the previous blog post.

Below are the settings used in the “3D Textures” feature.

Once applied, the hill was converted from a 3D graphic into a mesh.

The next step was separating the hill geometry from the base geometry. This makes the hill a separate body, which allows for coloring the hill differently from the rest of the part. The split is highlighted in the image below.

With this split, now the lake texture can be applied. However, applying the water texture to the top face of the pink section would result in the water texture being applied to the entire top face of the pink section. To restrict the water texture being applied to just the center of the piece, another splitting operation needs to be done to split the pink section. To do this, an extrusion that overlaps the inner lake portion was created, shown below.

Using the “Intersection” feature, a separate body was created, colored teal-green in the image below.

Now the water texture can be applied to the inner teal portion! With the water texture, setting the “3D Texture” settings to the smallest sized elements will make the texture highly detailed. Applying the texture results in the following image.

The last step (before adding lots of sheep) is to make another solid body underneath the lake portion. Since the lake portion is going to be colored slightly transparent, having a solid body underneath that is a matching blue color will prevent the green from the base showing underneath the lake. This is a very similar process to the creation of the separate lake body from earlier. One thing to keep in mind while doing this is overlapping bodies. When bodies overlap in SOLIDWORKS, the appearance will become a combination of the two bodies. An example of overlapping bodies is shown below.

To prevent this, use the subtract operation of the “Combine” feature to Boolean remove portion of the overlapping bodies.

It’s good to note that when using the subtract operation, the bodies in the “Bodies to Combine” section get consumed by the operation. To prevent losing the body, use the “Move/Copy Bodies” feature to copy the body before combining the body. Cuts can also be made using the “Surface Cut” feature using planes. For this wool piece, there were several of these operations used to get to the final piece.

The section view of the final piece is shown below.

Some very simple sheep were created in SOLIDWORKS and inserted into an assembly with the part.

From here, the assembly needs to be transferred into GrabCAD Print. In previous blog posts, SLDPRT and VRML file types were covered, so in this one we will use the 3MF file type. The 3MF file type was recently added to GrabCAD Print’s list of accepted files. This file type allows for separate solid bodies as well as textures to be saved with the part. To do this, make sure to edit the SOLIDWORKS options for the file. From the “Save as” menu, select .3MF file and click on the “Options” box.

From here, the screen looks suspiciously like changing the options on an STL file. This is because 3MF files were developed to keep the advantages of STLs, but include the advances that had been made in the last 30 years. Make sure to select “Include appearances” (I also selected “include materials” for fun).

Once saved, the model was imported into GrabCAD Print. Once the proper colors and transparencies were applied, this was the digital result.

After printing and a rinse here are the results!

The transparent water with the solid blue backing is very visible in the final product! Combining the realistic displacement map with the custom drawn displacement map opens up many more possibilities to create geometries that would otherwise be unobtainable in SOLIDWORKS. Below is another example

I hope these blogs have helped understand how 3D textures are interpreted in SOLIDWORKS and how easy and useful creating your own texture to bring in more organic geometry. If you have questions about the process or want to see more please reach out!

Until next time!

Kelsey Gabel
Application Engineer, Manufacturing Solutions
Computer Aided Technology, Inc