DFS Reference Library

Digital Fabrication 101: A brief article discussing the basics of what digital fabrication is and how it works. The article was written by Formlabs and thus has a slight bias toward 3D printing.

All About Supports: A detailed article about 3D print supports, when they are needed, and how to design around them

Visual 3d Print Troubleshooting Guide: Photos and examples of various 3d printing problems and how to fix them

3d Print Post Processing: Video and photo step-by-step guides to sanding, painting, and casting 3d prints

Advanced Post Processing for Resin Prints: Video on advanced post processing techniques including polishing, dyeing, electroplating, and powder coating.

3D Print Recycling: A guide to recycling waste PLA and ABS filament

Designing for Heat Set Inserts: Helpful design tips for heat set inserts and how to install them

Fit Test Objects: A printable object to help you determine the tolerances needed for designing press fit parts

Press Fit Tolerances: General tolerance guidelines for designing press fit parts

Making Voronoi Patterns in Meshmixer: A tutorial for turning meshes into voronoi lattices that can be printed with no support

Lithophane Maker: An online generator for making lithophane STLs. Several different shapes are available.

3D Additivist Cookbook: A collection of radical 3d printed projects

3d Printed Printing Press: Print files for a small press. This is slightly too large for our printers currently but could potentially be scaled down.

Open Press Project: Print files for a small handle-driven press. It costs $20 to print one of these presses in the Digital Fabrication Studio. This cost includes metal hardware.

Claybottress: An excellent blog by a ceramicist learning to use a clay printer. Includes lots of photos of failed prints and the “before & after” of an STL and the final printed output.

Jonathan Keep: A potter working extensively with clay 3d printing. Keep's website features many helpful articles about his various experiments with clay printing under the '3d Printing' tab. 

“The Weave”: An interesting example of clay printing large pieces in multiple parts 

“Extrusion-Based Ceramics Printing with Strictly-Continuous Deposition”: A scientific paper on a new version of continuous deposition (spiralized printing). Useful for thinking about the limitations of various splicing programs and the limitations of clay printing in general.

Printing Paste Materials: An article with tips for printing pastes such as clay and food

Laser Cutting Wood: Includes a good list of wood species that laser cut well

Laser Cut Finger Jointed Box: Demo of how to design for laser cut finger joints including calculating kerf

5 Common Laser Engraving Mistakes: A list of laser engraving mistakes having to do with material properties and some ways to fix them

Laser Cutting File Generators: A compilation of file generators for cutting boxes, gears, folded paper objects, etc

Laser Cutting Clay: Documentation of experiments laser engraving fired and unfired clay.

3D Scanning with iPhone 12 LIDAR: Reviews of a few iPhone 3D scanning apps

Tinkercad Learn Page: A series of quick interactive tutorials to teach you how to use the Tinkercad interface as well as a series of guided projects to further enhance your modeling skills

Meshmixer Help Page: Articles covering the basics and tools of Meshmixer

Meshmixer 101 Videos: Tutorial videos on a number of topics to help you get started in Meshmixer.

Rhino 6 User Guide: Comprehensive guide to Rhino

Rhino 6 Training Docs: Guides used to train people to use Rhino. Set up to start with basics and build upon those skills.

How to Solder: A Beginner's Guide: Step-by-step instructions for soldering boards and wires. Includes a link to  PDF e-book about how to solder.

How to Use Heat Shrink Tubing: Video tutorial on how to use heat shrink tubing in different applications. 

Reprintable Paste-based Materials for 3d Printing: Examples of different kinds of pastes made from various natural materials that were then extruded from a 3d printer.

Materials Bank: A database of DIY materials, many of them natural and recycled 

DIY Biomaterials: A list of a number of DIY bio materials including ingredients and instructions

DIY Alternative Leather: recipes for kombucha, salmon skin, and coffee leather

Chemarts Cookbook: A number of recipes for alternative materials. Physical copy available in the Digital Fabrication Studio

Bioplastic Cookbook: Recipes for a number of bioplastics

Materiom: Recipes for bioplastics, natural 3d printable materials, and natural dyes

Precious Plastics: Plans for open-source plastic recycling machines (shredders, extruders, injection mold machines, etc) as well as guides on how to recycle plastics into sellable goods

Small-scale Bondo Alternative: A gap filler made from super glue and baby powder

Moreshin Allahyari: Much of Allahyari’s work uses scanning and 3D printing. She is also one of the organizers/editors of the 3D Additivist Cookbook.

Nasser Alzayani: In ‘Objects in memory are larger than they appear,’ Alzayani laser-engraved packed sand, turning the top layer into glass.

El Anatsui: Anatsui worked with Factum Arte to 3D scan his work benches and use those scans to mill print plates.

Kristina Rose Baker: Baker 3d prints tools that she uses to create marks and texture in her paintings.

Barry X Ball: Scans sculptures and uses a CNC to carve them out of stone. His ‘Process’ page shows the various steps involved in this process.

Frank Benson: Benson’s figurative sculptures are produced through 3D scanning, 3D printing,  CNC milling and traditional casting techniques.

bernebeifreeman: In their ‘Digital Craft’ baskets, they combine both plastic and clay 3D printing with traditional basket weaving.

Ada Chen: Laser cuts acrylic to produce her ‘Text Message Earrings.’

Front: Design firm, Front, use motion capture, 3D scanning, and 3D printing in both their ‘Blow Away Vase’ and ‘Sketch Furniture’ projects.

Anya Gallacio: Gallacio’s work, ‘Beautiful Minds,’ uses a clay 3D printer to explore “failure” as a means of form creation.

Michael Hansmeyer: Hansmeyer’s architectural works are often fabricated through laser cutting or CNC milling.

Hugh Hayden: Hayden’s skillet pieces are created scanning African masks and combining them with found skillet forms. The result is inverted to create a mold which is 3D printed in sand and used for sand casting the final iron objects. (Artist’s website)

Marguerite Humeau: Humeau’s sculptures are often derived from 3D scans of archeological artifacts which are then manipulated in CAD, CNCed from foam, and then coated.

Ben Jurgensen: Jurgensen uses 3d scanning and modeling to design his 3d printed and CNC milled sculptures.

Anish Kapoor: In his piece, ‘Cement Room,’ Kapoor uses a large-scale cement 3D printer to produce parts of the work.

Markus Kayser: Kayser’s ‘Solar Cutter’ and ‘Solar Sinter’ focus sunlight to make a “low-tech” laser cutter and SLS 3D printer.

Dinara Kasko: Creates highly geometric cakes with molds created with 3D printing.

Jonathan Keep: A potter working extensively with clay 3d printing. Keep's website also features many helpful articles about his various experiments with clay printing. 

Joris Laarman: Laarman pushes 3D printing to its limits through scale and complexity. His most recent work makes use of a 3D-printed robot arm he designed.

Gracelee Lawrence: Lawrence 3D prints large-scale sculpture by printing in parts and joining them together.

NADAAA: Architectural firm that creates smoothly curved yet textured spaces using CAD and CNC routing.

Jolie Ngo: Uses a clay printer to make 3d printed ceramic vessels and sculpture.

Neri Oxman: Much of Oxman’s work is produced through multi-material 3D printing

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Sugimoto’s ‘Mathematical Models’ are precisely milled out of metal using a CNC.

University of Hong Kong: Marine scientists and architects collaborated to create 3D printed ceramic tiles to help promote the regrowth of Hong Kong’s coral reefs.

Joy Zhuo: Zhuo’s furniture work made in a variety of materials makes use of both laser cutters and CNC routers

3D Printed Treats: Includes some interesting process shots including the manipulation of prints after printing

Rhino 6 Training Docs: Guides used to train people to use Rhino. Set up to start with basics and build upon those skills.