What you'll learn

Throughout this Blender tutorial we'll explore some amazing tools and workflows that will prove essential to you as you start out on your 3D printing quest. We'll go through the basic printing methods and materials, and we'll also go over free 3D-modeling apps including Tinkercad and Blender. We'll cover methods of working with polygon geometry to prepare our models as well as cool techniques to lower the printing cost. We'll then upload the optimized models to Shapeways, the world's leading 3D-printing marketplace and community, for final checks before sending them to the printers. Though the videos will mostly focus on using Blender, the concepts apply to any 3D application of your choice. By the end of this Blender training, you'll have learned the fundamental workflows of preparing and optimizing your 3D models for any type of 3D printer. Software required: Blender 2.71, Tinkercad.com, Meshlab 1.3.3, netfabb Basic 5.1.1, Shapeways.com.