3D scan and print: Autodesk ReCap Photo – tutorial
See the video on YouTube. This is the text for the video.
Hi. In this video I will show you how to make a 3D copy of an objects with your phone in Autodesk ReCap Photo. It’s a beginners tutorial.
If you want to use another FREE 3D SCAN program 3DF ZEPHYR, click HERE.
Today I will show you how to make this little seashell copy. Steps are simple. Things you will need: a high-resolution camera (a smart phone is enough), PC with 64-bit Windows and some patience.
Let’s get to it. I put a chair next to the window to get the natural light, put a colorful book on the chair and a seashell on the top. Here are some of the photos I took. After taking them, copy all pictures to your hard drive. We will have to upload them onto Autodesk servers.
INSTALLING AUTODESK RECAP
First you will have to download Autodesk ReCap program. First enter www.autodesk.com into browser. Let’s find ReCap. You can get the ReCap or ReCap PRO. Let’s compare them. As you can see the major difference is: the ReCap PRO includes ReCap Photo program which we will need. You can buy the PRO version or just try the 30-days trial version. I will use the trial version. Let’s download it. It requires 64-bit Windows operating system. Proceed. Let’s select individual. Leave English. Let’s select some company name, enter ZIP, phone 123456, let’s say we are from China and select you province. Click next. Now download the program and install it. The program installs some icons on your desktop. Run the ReCap Photo.
CREATING 3D OBJECT
In ReCap Photo click Create 3D Object. Click the icon to upload images. Select them. In my case Shell photos folder. In current example there are 46 images. Click create. Select project name. I’ll enter ShellDEMO. A very handy option is Auto-crop. Select it. It will preserve us some time afterwards. Click start.
Now you can see the photos are uploaded to My Cloud Drive. We’ll have to wait. Here you can see the end result. After the download we will get the .rcm file on our drive. Here is the cut object I have shown you at the start of this video. My Cloud Drive has 25GB capacity.
After the upload you have to wait in the queue with your order. In this video I clipped sequences. In reality I waited 1 hour for the process to finish. So, wow, it’s finished. So soon. Click download icon. Select folder, save. Wait for it. It appeared under My Computer. Let’s click our newly saved model.
I’ll zoom in and rotate it a bit. It is cropped, but it will need some additional work. On the left we have a menu. Select edit, slice&fill. Select no fill. As you can see a cutting plane appeared. If we are on the outer side of the circular plane an up&down arrow icon appears. With your mouse you can move the plane up or down. Crop with clicking Apply button. We will have to repeat procedure several times. When you are on the inner side of circle, a two-ellipse mouse icon appears. It means we can rotate the XYZ planes.
In the end we have a hole in the bottom. Let’s fill it. By going to Edit, Fill holes we select appropriate tool. Let’s zoom in and select one of the bottom triangles. Click Flat. This can take some time.
I’ll rotate it a bit to show you what we have. The bottom edges are a bit sharp. You can smooth it by going to edit, surface tools, smooth. Brush size is too large. I’ll reduce it. Now let’s click the bottom edge all the way around. Press Commit in the end. Let’s make another overview.
There are also other tools. Here is one for detecting and fixing errors. I’ll click it. Well that’s good, no defects.
Export options are: image, video or model. Let’s get the STL file for our 3D printer. Nice option here is to lower object’s faces. If you want precise .1 layer print leave faces intact, otherwise experiment.
SLICING THE MODEL
I will not print the model, but I will slice it in Repetier Host with Cura slicer. First, let’s enlarge the model. In reality it is 7 times larger. Zooming in to show details. Firstly, I’ll slice into 0.3mm layer height. I selected 10% infill. Let’s see more details. You can see most are lost. I would be a rough print. Next I’ll slice into 0.1mm layer height. Before the screen update we will see a glimpse of 0.3mm layer height. 0.1 preserves more details.
CUTTING EDGES & SUPPORTS
Here you can see the supports Cura makes to level out object. If you slice it in one plane at the start, the print will look smoother at the bottom in the end. It’s up to you to decide.
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DESCRIPTION
In this tutorial I will show you how to convert your photos from your phone into a 3D object, how to 3D scan. I will use Autodesk ReCap Photo. In short: take images, download ReCap Pro, upload photos, wait for your 3D object and download it. ReCap offers basic 3D tools for finalizing the object. I will convert a seashell into a 3D object. In the end I will slice it with Cura slicer into 0.1 and 0.3mm layer height to show you the comparison between the two.
Please hit LIKE button, SHARE video, COMMENT below and SUBSCRIBE to my channel.
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