During our interview with Scott Camazine, we realized that there was a moment where he tipped his hat to our Wall Thickness Fixing tool. Because this feature is relatively new, we thought this would be a great time to highlight the use of the tool in real context! Scott’s shop started small, but has been able to flourish with his ability to use our tools to help him with problem-areas (for printability) in his models.
BONUS from Designer Spotlight: Scott Camazine
Previously, without the thickness checker, all I knew was that certain areas in my skull models were too thin. A few of these areas were marked in the rejection notice. Although I could use Netfabb to check additional areas, what I really needed with a color-coded visualization of ALL the thin areas on my model. And BINGO! One day, not too long ago, I was asked to be a beta tester for the new thickness checker. It was exactly what I had hoped for – A 3D visualization of my model with all the thin areas color-coded. Now, with Blender I could thicken those areas manually with Blenders Sculpt tools while referring to the color-coded 3D model provided by Shapeways.
Next came the automatic thickness fixer from Shapeways. In many cases, I could simply have the Thickness Fixer to the Blender sculpting work for me. Of course, sometimes I could not simply rely on the Thickness Fixer. After all, I was working with organic models based on nature. I could not expect the Thickness Fixer to do everything. For example, consider the fangs on a fox. These have to come to a sharp point. How else could a fox hunt if it did not have sharp teeth. The Thickness Fixer did not know that, so it often puts a dull blob on the tip of my fangs (see above). But with a bit of work in Blender, I could re-sculpt the areas that were not fixed the way I wanted them.
I did intend to sell my sculptures to the public from the start, but initially it was very difficult to get models that consistently that passed the thickness checking process. Therefore, I had a very limited collection of skulls. Once I got past those technical problems by using the thickness checker and Blender, I was able to create a collection of about 30 different skulls. At that point, I realized that if I could get an audience, I had a chance of creating a market. (It was then that I set up my Kickstarter campaign, in hopes of reaching a wider audience.)
E-commerce through Shapeways is really a high priority for me because Shapeways fulfills all the orders automatically and even packages the items in their cute little black velvet bags. That saves me an enormous amount of time which I would prefer to devote to creating additional skull models and broadening my collection. Shapeways has everything in place to set up a convenient online shop for selling items. If I do it myself either through Etsy or my own website, I have to keep track of all the orders, maintain an inventory and fulfill the orders. It is a lot of work. Therefore, I would LOVE to improve my shop visibility on the Shapeways site.
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And there you have it! Not only was the wall thickness fixing tool something that Scott dreamed of, it came to life! With that, so did his shop and designs. He is now able to spend less time tweaking models, re-uploading, etc. and can focus on growing his collection. If you haven’t yet, try the wall thickness fixing on your own models, and share your story! With new features being built regularly, we love to see them working in the wild. We found Scott’s story particularly inspiring because this tool enabled him to add to his shop and sell publicly, increasing his overall e-commerce game. All kinds of good things happening here. Thanks so much for sharing, Scott! Keep up the wonderful work. Don’t forget to visit his shop here!