The Blog

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012 Posted by Laura Lyn Plant

Something New: Our 3D Modelling and Printing Workshop!

On July 14th, we invite you to join us at the TIFF Bell Lightbox so that you can learn how to design and print your very own 3 dimensional…”thing”, using today’s coolest new technology: 3D printers! You even get to take it home at the end of the day. How neat is that??

What is 3D printing and why is it so useful?
3D printing is a method of making solid, three-dimensional objects from a digital file. The process entails laying down successive layers of a material – often thin, melted strands of ABS plastic – along a fixed set of geometrical coordinates that align with those of the digital file. This technology, especially when used to prototype new designs, is useful in many fields, such as industrial design, architecture, engineering and construction, jewellery making, fashion design, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, dental and medical prosthetic design, education, geographic information system design, civil engineering, and countless others. It’s also just really fun to come up with an idea for something and be able to actually create it in a really short period of time! At this event we will be designing our own small unique “things” using iMacs and a program called Meshmixer and bringing them to life using an assortment of different 3D printers – we’ll have 10 or more different 3D printers on-site!

3D Modelling with Meshmixer
Autodesk meshmixer is a free tool for working with high-resolution 3D mesh models. Unlike many 3D tools, meshmixer is designed to be useful for makers of all ages and skill levels. If you are a 3D novice, you can use meshmixer’s drag-and-drop tools to decorate an existing 3D object, or point-and-click to turn a rough scan into a printable solid. If you are a 3D pro, you can use solid operations to design complex mechanical parts, or use meshmixer’s sculpting brushes to turn a sphere into, well, anything. Combine meshmixer with 3D capture software like 123D Catch and you can turn yourself into a 3D printed action figure, make a family chess set, create a personalized face mask, or make weird Stephen Colbert mashups. Meshmixer is free for Windows and Mac OSX at www.meshmixer.com.

The Ladies Learning Code 3D Modelling and Printing Workshop
This workshop will bring 48 lucky learners together for 4-hours of modelling and printing their own unique things. In order to have this volume of participation, the learners will be staggered in two groups, as follows.

Group 1 - July 14, 2012
10am-11am: Learn about 3D modelling and printing & Autodesk meshmixer tutorial
11am-12pm: 3D modelling with Autodesk meshmixer
12pm-2pm: Print your 3D thing!

Group 2 - July 14, 2012
12pm-1pm: Learn about 3D modelling and printing & Autodesk meshmixer tutorial
1pm-2pm: 3D modelling with Autodesk meshmixer
2pm-4pm: Print your 3D thing!

Registration for these workshops is $50 and opens on Wednesday, June 20th at 7 pm. An additional round of tickets will be available at 9 am on Thursday, June 21st. To register, please visit http://ladieslearningcode3d.eventbrite.com

Our Amazing Lead Instructors

Ryan Schmidt (http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~rms/)

Ryan is a Research Scientist at Autodesk Research in Toronto, Canada. Ryan’s research focuses on interactive 3D design tools, with the goal of making them more expressive and efficient. As an undergraduate at the University of Calgary, he worked on a spinal surgery simulator and designed the MADBoxes display wall. In his graduate work (MSc UCalgary 2006, PhD UToronto 2010) he created ShapeShop, an easy-to-use sketch-based 3D modeling tool, and started the meshmixer project, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2011. Currently he is continuing to develop meshmixer and exploring new design interfaces in the context of emerging personal 3D fabrication workflows.

Gabby Resch (http://losingtime.ca/)

Gabby is a graduate student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information and a member of both the ENCORE Lab research group at OISE and the Mobile and Pervasive Computing Cluster at the Inclusive Design Institute. He studies the development of digital media tools for educational purposes, and is especially interested in those that blur the lines between the virtual world and the authentic material world.

We would like to give a special thanks to Marie-Eve Belanger and the ThingTank team, for their early support in the evolution of this cutting-edge event, and the Autodesk team for your sponsorship and TIFF for letting us use your awesome space.