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MINEEFORM
3D Modeling Services & 3D Printing Services Orange County, CA
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How 3D Modeling Works
To better understand rapid prototyping services cost, let's get on the same page about some of the elementary truths. In order to make things with robots (3D printers or CNC machines), we first need a 3D file of some sort. For 3D printing, this usually means an STL file. Although we can convert other common file formats, such as STEP files, into STL files for 3D printing free of charge. Basically, we need a 3D shape somehow so that the robot can fabricate it for us.
If you don't have a 3D file for 3D printing, we offer 3D scanning & 3D modeling. If you already have a physical object that you want to make replicas of, we can locally 3D scan the object into an STL file for 3D printing.
Here is a 3D printed car emblem that we 3D scanned (the complex topography of the car body), 3D modeled (the custom emblem), & 3D printed within 0.05mm precision for a perfect seamless fit.
If you don't have a physical object for 3D scanning, we also offer 3D modeling services to bring your idea to life. To save time & money in 3D modeling, please provide plenty of napkin sketches or reference photos (with precise dimensions if possible).
The drawings don't have to be perfect. In fact, you can literally draw on a napkin, take a picture of it, & text over that picture. In 3D modeling, a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Because it's hard to communicate abstract 3D shapes with mere words.
Once we have all the visual references necessary to construct the object, we can turn those 2D concepts into 3D lines, curves, & surfaces. This process of clicking buttons to add information to shapes is what people call "3D modeling". The rapid prototyping services cost, thus, depends on the number of unique features 3D modeled out.
Since everything inside a computer is fast, cheap, & happens at the speed of thought, plenty of rasterized (simple) renderings will be provided to communicate the progress & shape prior to committing to 3D printing (which is much slower & more expensive since it's basically compiling the shape in atoms).
Photorealistic ray-traced (light simulation) renderings & animations for investor presentations or Kickstarter videos are also available for an additional cost. In fact, if your goal is to simply create pretty pictures for the purpose of capital raising, 3D rendering is the much cheaper & faster alternative to 3D printing & then taking a picture of that 3D printed object.
After we are done with the 3D modeling, the files (source file & 3D printing STL files) are your intellectual property. Please save it as we don't archive files since we go through sooo many projects! You are free to get those files 3D printed anywhere. You are not stuck doing business with us!
But since our prices are pretty good & our turnaround time is super fast, we will also give you a quote for our local 3D printing service. FDM prints are much cheaper than resin prints. But FDM prints will have significant print artifacts, such as layer lines or other noticeable surface blemishes.
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