Greg Davis Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Hello, Looking for help: A design/build client that we do a lot of 3d modeling & renderings for recently asked for a 3D print for one of our projects. I have no experience with this, but said we'd take care of it....so the past few weeks have been quite a crash course. We've got the model pretty water tight now and have been getting quotes from some companies on prints. But was hoping to get some advice from anyone that has been printing their architectural models. Anything you have to share - what size is working best to show the smaller details, what materials are giving the best results as well as print technologies, companies you'd recommend to do the printing, etc. Attached are pics of the model so you'll know what we're dealing with. The long side of the house measures 95ft. I believe printing at 16 scale will make it about 7". Really starting from scratch here and the client is looking to me to be the expert...so any pointers you can give will be very appreciated. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 It has been my experience to treat them more like a kit of parts and less like you have shown. As for scale, I'd suggest you use the finest apparent detail from the model and scale that according to the resolution of the printer. For example, If the total width of that model will be 7" completed, the window mullions will not come out very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 Be sure to check the minimums for the printer type you plan to use. For example, minimum thickness of a wall (meaning any open slab) might be 1mm. Shapeways will auto-check these things, and sometimes gets it wrong. So when you have decided your scale, actually scale the model down and work in mm or cm from there on to make it easier to check your tolerances. Printing in color? There is just the one 'sandstone' method readily available (as far as I know) and it uses a dye while printing. Dyes fade. Consider printing in parts and spray painting. That would allow you to print in a higher-detail plastic than the sandstone. 3D printing is really expensive. Oh, sure, you can get a little sad Keanu Reeves for not much, but bigger models in high detail plastic are costly. Metals are more. I had Shapeways cost a steel print for me at almost $10,000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komyali Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 use laser or projector printing SLA SLS DLP or something similar, they have better resolution in microns. Forget FDM ( extruding plastic in layers) it is for my taste bad quality. Yes these plastic 3d models are expensive but they are good quality. Or you can just unwrap your model in max and make cheap quality paper model (with textures) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Pickard Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 I work for an architectural firm and one of our clients wanted their house to be 3D printed. Fortunately i have a friend who works for a 3D printing company called 3DPrintUK. The client wanted the the model as big as it could be which ended up being around 190mm x 230mm x 300mm. I obviously had quite a detailed model but had to strip it down to basics for printing. I had to send it to them in a STL format. You also have to make sure there are no holes in the mesh, but they check it before they print it. They use a nylon material which is a nice and strong, but can come out in a matte white material. Its not cheap, all in all with postage it came just shy of the £1000 mark. I've attached the finished 3dprint. Some small details were lost but the client was happy with it! Check there website for more information, on the materials they use as well as other info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkylineArch Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 (ugh, I had a nice long reply, but the forum lost it when I clicked the attached image above too many times) Anyway, the sort version is, I bought a FDM printer a couple weeks ago to print models, there is a learning curve to get the models just right to print without errors. After a lot of tests, I ended up printing at 1/8" scale to give the most detail at the smallest scale. My print bet is only 200mm, or about 8", so I can only print about 60' of house at a time. The model I printed was in 6 parts plus 2 prints for the timber frame elements. I printed the roof separately to avoid the need of supports under the overhangs. I've been gluing it together for a couple days and hope to have it all together and painted this weekend. If this takes off I plan on buying another printer for ever job I get until I get 4 or 6 of them built up, so I can print in one day vs 3 or 4, and/or print at better quality since time won't be as much of an issue. The next model I'm going to print at once to whatever scale fits on the bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komyali Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 @ Mark Can you post picture of your print, I am very interested Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkylineArch Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 Some asembely required. The roof print to the right was about as big as i could print on the bed, and took about 20 hours to print. I was going to make the roof rwmoveable, but its not really necessary with this clubhouse because there isn't much happening inside to show. There is a lot of timber framing and trellis to build still. Ill add more pjotos when its together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komyali Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 great, are you going to paint model? also what printer do you use, it looks like FDM but print is from good if you used that type of printer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkylineArch Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 I'm using the Monoprice Maker Select Plus (a.k.a. the Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus). Those prints are at .3mm layers, if I print at .1 it looks a lot better but naturally takes longer to print. So yeah, it's an FDM print in PLA. I'm going to paint it a matte gray. The white PLA is a little translucent, so the details are easily lost, in some of the test I've printed the gray paint helps out a lot, but, it also makes the print layers stand out, so it's a trade off. This model is strictly for a sample, so I don't want it too perfect to set high expectations, if I get more printers I'll start to decrease the layer thickness as time allows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkylineArch Posted April 3, 2017 Share Posted April 3, 2017 Well, I personally think this came out like crap, but hopefully the next one will be better now that I have some of the bugs worked out. Glad this wasn't a paying job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted April 4, 2017 Share Posted April 4, 2017 What did you expect? 3d printing, at least on the economical scale, isn't there yet. The best case is to print a kit of parts and assemble the model after. That way you max out the printing deck size, get a bigger model, and print bigger so you don't lose much detail. Plus most economical 3d prints need some level of cleanup after they are done to remove the grooves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkylineArch Posted April 4, 2017 Share Posted April 4, 2017 That model was printed in parts, overall it's about a 10" square, printed at 1/8" scale. I think it has more to do with the lower quality settings I used to print the file more than the printer, other than I found out it's under extruding the filament. Test prints of smaller section of that model, as well as other prints I've made look a lot better, but this came down to the amount of time I wanted to spend on printing. That being said, I'm already looking at a resin printer, the problem is the available print sizes vs. price of the machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Davis Posted April 5, 2017 Author Share Posted April 5, 2017 Hey yall, I decided to go with a company out of Colorado, LGM. Largely because they're focused on producing arch models and seem to have a lot of experience in it. They've been real helpful so far and pretty competitively prices. We're doing a color sandstone print at 1:12. For the brick, tabby, and shake, we're gonna print the image textures on. For the small details like standing seam roof and board & batten siding, theyre going to massage the geometry to help them show up. For other smaller details such as front railing and back upper-deck railing that dont meet minimum printer resolution, theyre going to laser cut separate and glue on after. Pretty excited about this. Thanks to everyone for your input! Very helpful. I'll post pics once finished and will be able to field any questions as 3D print prepping 'expert' now that I survived the process. ps- one regret I have so far is that I didnt model the roof removable to show floor plan inside....but solid model is what we've got now and there isnt any time or money left to change it. We'll get 'um next time.... Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beestee Posted April 5, 2017 Share Posted April 5, 2017 That being said, I'm already looking at a resin printer, the problem is the available print sizes vs. price of the machines. I didn't find the cost of the resin printers to be as prohibitive as the cost of the consumables required to use one, you might take a closer look at that side of it before jumping in on a light cured resin printer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted April 5, 2017 Share Posted April 5, 2017 the resin is often considered hazmat in it's liquid form so you may want to check your local regulations before taking that leap. It affects shipping, delivery and disposal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Davis Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 Hey yall, Just letting you know how things turned out. Used LGM out of Colorado to print. They were great to work with, very helpful throughout the whole process and went the extra mile. Final product came out great. Pics attached-----> Cheers, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 looks fine. what was the final bill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Davis Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 Don't remember off the top of my head....but I think the total came to around $1400. If your interested let me know and I'll look up the invoice and can give you a breakdown. We pretty much took every up-sell option they threw at us That also included cad prep time for them to get the small details - board & batten, standing seam roof, corbels, etc - to show at such a small scale. If I remember correctly, it started around $400 for a monochrome print, then add $400 for color, etc, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komyali Posted June 17, 2017 Share Posted June 17, 2017 (edited) Just got SLA printer just sayin man for 1400$ I would print you even beter model Save Edited June 17, 2017 by komyali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahkubrik Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 Maybe too late to reply but in case someone will need a model printed, I'd recommend Treatstock. At least you can upload a model and see all the prices and materials available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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