Carbon Fiber guitar. Go Make one this weekend with 123D.

Posted by on March 20, 2013 No comments
Last month in San Francisco, TechShop members had a little party over the weekend to make their own custom guitars. That's rad enough, but the workshop aimed one step further and taught them how to do it in Carbon Fiber.

The process is simpler than you'd think.  With a basic guitar body design, you can build a model in 3D software (123D Design is free), then take that file via an .stl model into 123D Make, which slices the model into cross sections that you can laser cut (or go analog and grab an Exacto blade).  Once those are stacked and glued together, you have a mold!!  Read this Instructable on how to do to do it, you'll get no spoilers here.

OR, you can listen to the Safety Third Show - in Episode 1, they go through the experience of the workshop and Blaine sings a little song.

Here's the coverage on Wired Design:


Posted in: 123D Design, 123D Make, Challenges, Laser Cutting, Music, Random FunTagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Long-Distance Prosthetic Fitting

Posted by on March 15, 2013 No comments
Instructables Superhero Bilal Ghalib recently put up an amazing post after visiting his cousin Zaid in Iraq  - who has lost the lower half of his leg from diabetes (after 13 years of sanctions, his family can't always get to the medical care that they need).  Even more unfortunate is the fact that Zaid's brace causes incredible pain when he uses it.

Bilal used 123D Catch to create a model of his cousin's leg, met with a former Stanford engineer - Joel Sadler - and went back to Iraq with a supplemental design that would help with the pain.

From Bilal:

The idea was that if we could tie the brace tightly enough around the prosthetic, the metal bar that goes through the brace would help distribute the weight to the top of the brace attached to his thigh. I was able to prototype this project the last time I was there with Mujtaba from the Iraqi hackerspace Fikra Space. It didn't remove all the pain from the pressure point on his leg, but it did help. It appears that the addition of a more natural body shaped insertion point would help relieve the rest of the pain.



 
We'll keep you updated on their progress, but read the full Instructable here.
Posted in: 123D Catch, HacksTagged as: , , , , ,

New 123D iPad app for creating 3D Creatures!!

Posted by on February 13, 2013 9 comments
We’re excited to announce the launch of Autodesk 123D Creature, a new app on iPad specifically designed for creating 3D creatures and characters! Watch the launch video to see what 123D Creature is all about.

       

Making original characters with Autodesk 123D Creature starts with a simple skeleton creator where you lay out the basic anatomy of your creature. Then thicken, pose, detail, and paint your model using Multi-Touch gestures including sculpting and image paint tools - kind of like 123D Sculpt.

You can order a full color 3D print of your creature from Sculpteo directly from inside the app, or you can export an OBJ including textures via email or iTunes. You can also bring your creature into the Render room where you can adjust the lights, background, and filter effects to generate amazing scenes and images.

And the app is connected to your 123D account, so you can save your creatures to the cloud, and share them with the community.  We’re looking forward to seeing what people create, there are already some amazing creatures in the 123D Gallery from our beta testers.

This is our first single-purpose 123D app, so if you’ve try it out, let us know what you think. Also, 123D Creature is purpose-built for creating creatures, if there’s something there you think would be great to see in other apps, let us know at 123D@autodesk.com.

123D Creature is now available on the App Store at a special price of $1.99 for a limited time!
Posted in: 123D, 123D Creature, 3D Printing, Random Fun, UpdatesTagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

123D Design 1.1 Update now available!

Posted by on January 10, 2013 2 comments

What’s new in 123D Design 1.1?  Many of you have asked for some specific features with a new release of 123D Design.  We heard you and have integrated many of them in this release!  Let’s see some of these features:

Export STL Files

You now have the option to directly export an STL file from within 123D Design, without having to go back to 123Dapp.com to download it.

Now you can export right from the drop-down menu.

Insert

123D Design 1.0 only allowed inserting parts through the Parts Bin. Now you can not only insert  parts but also merge complete models by using the Insert function. We also made it so that you can insert from your local drive, not just files stored in the cloud!

Insert objects from a local drive!

Sketching Enhancements

123D Design 1.1 introduces several new features that many of you requested in the last month. You can now Trim and Extend objects while you sketch. We have also introduced Arc, and also added an option for doing Fillet on two different entities within the sketch.

We've also enhanced dimensioning of sketches, and introduced the ability to mirror a sketch.  We think these new tools will increase the power of sketching with your design.

More sketching functions!

Dimensions

If you ever wondered how to make sure what’s the distance between two elements, or an angle within a sketch or different edges in your model, now there’s a simple solution.

123D Design 1.1 introduces the Dimension tool. It allows you to select two elements (can be bodies, faces, edges, lines) and display the resulting dimensions. 

New dimensioning and measurement capabilities!

Send to CNC Utility

123D Design 1.0 introduced options for directly sending the model to 123D Make, and also allowed you order a 3D print based on your current model. Now we have introduced an option to send the model to a CNC utility, which will lead you through all the steps for preparing your model for fabrication with a CNC device.

Send your model to your CNC device!

 
Posted in: 123D, 123D Design, 3D Printing, UpdatesTagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

Sliced Furniture

Posted by on January 19, 2012 5 comments

Designer Mathias Bengtsson created some amazing sliced furniture. He started by modeling the furniture in clay and then sliced it into two thousand layers of recycled paper. These layers were ultimately glued together into this couch. Albeit made using traditional methods, this work is highly reminiscent of the type of things that can be easily made using 123D Make and is great inspiration for the possibility of the software. With a little bit of imagination - and a lot of glue - imagine all of the incredible things that you could Make.

via spotd.it

Posted in: 123D MakeTagged as: , ,