THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 10 ARCHICAD

[Stefania Dinea 101]

I am Stefania Dinea, an architect who mixes 3D printing, VR, parametric design and blogging daily and I will share some of my 3D printing tips & tricks with you. This series is my overview about the process and my work-around. Please feel free to comment and add. 

 

PREVIOUS POST:

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 01 TOPOGRAPHY

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 02 MASSING

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 03 TOLERANCES AND SNUG FIT

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 04 ENTOURAGE

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 05 HIGH RESOLUTION BUILDING FACADES

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 06 INTERIOR DESIGN

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 07 STL EXPORT FROM REVIT

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 08 OPTIMIZE BUILD VOLUME

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 3D PRINTING - 09 MATERIAL PROFILES

 

10 ARCHICAD

 

As you all well know by now, I am not an Archicad user, however, I do have friends who are avid users, one of them being Simona Halici, an architect who got into 3D printing about a year ago. She also implemented a 3D printing manual within her company and she was nice enough to share it with us. Below I will post extracts from her manual that are relevant to this topic. 

 

 Preparing a print with Cura

 

 

https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52287-how-to-print-with-pva-support

 

View option:

-       solid view

-       layer view: always use this so you can see if there are any parts missing or any errors in the model

 

Controls:

-       Right click – orbit

-       Hold the scroll button – pan

-       Left click on the model – activates the modifiers (move, scale, rotate, mirror, assign extruder to model)

 

Custom print setup

 

Profile

-       Fast (what I recommend using)

-       Normal (better resolution, suitable for detailed models)

-       Fine/extra fine (takes too long and is not significantly better than the normal profile)

-       Custom mode changes : If profile settings have been modified in recommended mode under custom mode, a reset icon will appear to notify the user. Click the icon to show the changes that have been made, and revert back to the default profile settings.
 

 

Infill

-       Infil density: 7% is enough for most models

-       Infill pattern: Grid

-       Relative positioning of infill patterns: Infill patterns are now positioned relative to the center of loaded models and an offset can be applied to control the infill more precisely and adjust it to preference or strength.

 

Cooling

-       Always keep this setting on!

 

 

Support

-       You don’t need support if there are no overhangs (balconies) or if the overhangs have less than 45 degrees angle

-       Select which extruder (print core) to use for the support structure

-       Extruder 1 : print core AA / PLA material

-       Extruder 2 : print core BB / PVA material

 

-       PLA is faster but it is more difficult to remove and it will leave marks in the model

-       PVA needs to be dissolved in water after the print is finished. depending on the size of the print, it can take a few hours to completely dissolve. Use warm water (but not hot! Otherwise it will deform the plastic)

-       When using PVA and encountering errors (the support is missing in some parts or it does not adhere well to the PLA) turn the “horizontal expansion” setting on. It will increase the size of the support structure and minimise the risk of adhesion errors but it will also increase the printing time.

 

 

 

Build plate Adhesion

-       “none” if there are many models being printed at the same time and there is not so much space on the buid plate

 

-       “brim” to make sure there is no risk of warping. This will create a thin edge at the bottom of the model that you will need to manually remove after the print is done

 

-       If warping still occurs, check these solutions:

https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/19537-how-to-fix-warping

 

 

Preparing a 3d model for print

 

- Select a layer combination that hides all details

 -Filter out the doors, windows and furniture from the 3D view

-If you don’t want to show the interior of the building, use the morph tool and draw a surface that covers all the plan of the building. Offset it 100 or 150 mm inside and make a volume from it that fills up all the building. Use element operation tools to modify the morph

 -The final 3d should not have any holes inside otherwise the print will take longer to finish

 

- If the model contains a large terrain, select the only the area you want to print with a Marquee tool that displays all floors and show it in 3D view

 

 

- You can adjust the 3d View further by creating a horizontal cutting plane that will remove the bottom part of the terrain (it will save material and make the print faster)

 

 

Check scale: it needs to fit on the build plate

 - Use an A3 Master layout in Archicad and create a new layout

 - Import one of these external drawings directly on the layout:

AA.pdf (if you want to print with PLA only)

AA_BB.pdf (if the print requires PVA support structure)

 

 

 - Place the plan view of the model you want to print

- Adjust the scale of the model in order to fit in the white surface of the drawing. The grey parts are not usable (AA_BB has less printable surface because it using both extruders instead of only one)

 

 

-Make sure the walls are thick enough to be printed

(general rule : the walls should be at least 5 x printing layer height)

 

 

- From the 3dview - save as StereoLitography file

 

- Set the correct scale

 

- Open the .stl file with Cura

 

 

 

Printing with USB

 

●     Place the USB stick in your computer.

●     Slice your 3D model in Cura. Ensure that the print core and material configuration in Cura match the configuration on your Ultimaker 3 or change the configuration on your printer to match the settings in Cura.

●     Save the print file (.gcode) via the “Save to removable drive” button to the USB stick.

●     Eject the USB stick in Cura and remove it from your computer.

●     Place the USB stick in the Ultimaker 3 (front side, next to the display).

●     Go to Print and select the file you want to print.

●     Write on the post-it on the side of the printer the information of the print (meters, grams) so that everyone can check how much material is left

●     Once the print is finished, remove the model from the build plate https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/36910-how-to-remove-your-print-from-the-build-plate

 

Add-on files:

 

AA.pdf

AA_BB.pdf

 

 

NEXT BLOG - Q&A

As my blog series is coming to an end, and I have enjoyed sharing and structuring the knowledge I have accumulated so far regarding 3D printing in architecture, I will still continue to post tips&tricks as I come across them, but as a final post of the series I will like to make a Q&A. So feel free to drop any questions that I might have missed and I will answer them in the next and final blog, which will be two weeks from now. 

 

Until next time,

//Stefania

Edited October 7, 2018 by Stefania Dinea

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @Stefania Dinea thank you for your great post again. I'm curious what @Alex L thinks of it, being an ArchiCAD user himself. 

 

Also really like the idea of the Q&A. 

 

I'll start with one: Do you (often) post process your 3D prints, or are they often good to use straight out of the Ultimaker? If you do, what is it that you most often do? 

And question-inception, is there perhaps a post-processing technique you would like to apply but are not familiar with yet? ?

[Alex L 29]

That is great, it shows how incredibly simple to process is through ArchiCAD (although there is probably no need to include all of the Cura stuff at the start as that is all covered elsewhere).

 

One of my current tasks is to produce a guide to creating 3D printed output - might not need to bother now...

 

I hadn't thought about introducing a build plate template within our master template file. I will get this amended with the next revision - Thanks!

 

 

[Stefania Dinea 101]

14 minutes ago, SandervG said:

the Q&A. 

 

I'll start with one: Do you (often) post process your 3D prints, or are they often good to use straight out of the Ultimaker? If you do, what is it that you most often do? 

And question-inception, is there perhaps a post-processing technique you would like to apply but are not familiar with yet? ?

 

Will add that to the Q&A.

 

And @Alex L, my friend Simona, who is the one who put this together, is obviously a tinker too - I will tell her you thought the template file was good - also have to kick her ass into joining the community, since she is also using an Ultimaker at the office. 

[SandervG 1,521]

2 minutes ago, Stefania Dinea said:

also have to kick her ass into joining the community, since she is also using an Ultimaker at the office. 

?

[SandervG 1,521]

I'm curious if anyone else who is involved with architecture has any questions for @Stefania Dinea too? Stefania is very experienced with 3D printing and architecture, so if you are on the verge of diving in or some areas are less clear than others, this is your moment, ask away! Specific questions, or more general about certain subjects. We can provide more content for you about it. ?

 

I'm just going to tag a few people I know who are involved with architecture to make sure no one misses the opportunity. 

@Alex L , @Brendancavan , @Florisvh , @slspencer , @SarpSusuzer, @bigmodels , @DanielHolmSweden, @hghu?

 

Thank you for your time! 

[Stefania Dinea 101]

Thanks @SandervG for the shout out, I will probably do the last post over the weekend and include some of my extra tips&tricks. However it would be nice to get more questions, seriously everyone, whatever comes to mind, or even if you know a solution to a frustrating problem you once had and how you solved it ? would be nice to include some of your experiences #sharingiscaring

[Alex L 29]

So we have been getting along brilliantly with our 'fleet' of Ultimaker printers (1x UMOriginal, 1x UM2 and 2xUM3) and ArchiCAD. The Custom Cutting Planes function is perfect for extracting model information to create facade studies straight out of ArchiCAD and into Cura with minimal alterations!

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Very nice print 🙂