I've been learning Houdini lately with Apprentice and for my girlfriend's birthday decided to set myself a challenge to model some jewellery in Houdini to be rapid prototyped/cast in silver - first completed practical project in Houdini! I tried to keep it as procedural as possible, and used blender to add a bit of detailing and export to STL. The final print/cast came out great, was lots of fun.
hey jesse! After looking at the examples on the shapeways site, I wasn't fully confident with the level of quality and detail that they could provide. I ended up using http://www.rapidprototype.com.au/ [rapidprototype.com.au] , based in St Peters, who I was really happy with - fast turnaround too if you're local.
Oh nice, yeah they print much higher resolution than shapeways. Doesn't look too pricey either, good find. Did you end up with any perceivable banding or printing artifacts on the edges?
Nothing really visible on the edges, the straight edges (especially in those extruded lines) came through very sharp and clear. It looks a fair bit better in real life than it does in the large image above - It's quite small so you don't notice the imperfections as much.
On the flat areas, there's a light texture from the layering process that gives it a very feint striped matte appearance. Rather than get these areas polished, I really liked how it looked - the patterned lines from the process matched the rest of the design really well.
[mke3.net]
