Getting an idea out of your head and onto a piece of paper is essential. It's time to begin communicating and solidifying your creation to the real world.

Whether you have an existing example of what your product should look like, or you're staring from scratch, we are here to help you. By drawing a two dimensional shape we can begin to take a look at the perspectives that make up our complex three dimensional shape.

By considering the front, side, and top perspectives of what we are designing, we begin to understand how this part exists in three dimensional space.  Designing is an important step to complete before we even approach the computer. We have the ability to create anything and we can ensuring our ideas are represented correctly by taking to time to sketch.

Ahh yes, the feedback phase. In rapid prototyping we are afforded a luxury that people only a few years ago didn't have! We can change our minds about a design or tweak something quickly. The ability to make changes before a production run is one reason why 3D is helping us remove waste and excess from the design and production process.

In this phase we can adjust a model before we even use any material, we can add and remove features, we can then approve a design for print and relax because we know exactly what we'll get!

This is also a great phase to talk about materials! With the emergence of new material technology, a new potential in utility, look, and feel is being uncovered; a whole new way to look at 3D printing. No longer restricted designing for basic manufacturing methods, we have access to plant based, flexible, multicolour, glass, wax, durable, and even heat resistance objects. Often times we want to consider how the materials available can and should impact our design and how we print.

Wahoo! We go to print!

After assessing and selecting the appropriate material and printer, we get to send our .obj or .stl to the printer!

Robots need the work to stay in good shape and the designer gets a break!

After a part is created we have a bit of post processing! We may just need to remove the support from the object or depending on the desired end product we might professionally finish and and paint the object. Both FDM and SLA printing have some finishing however SLA is much smoother right off the printer.

THE DESIGN IS DELIVERED!

Either we complete the prototype process or we repeat the above steps. Taking a look at the finished product, feeling it in our hand, and understanding the weight are a major reason to rapid prototype. From here we can approve design or decide to make an edit to the model or material.

Welcome to Rapid Prototyping