How to make 3D printed parts look like finished parts - GrabCAD Blog

Everyone knows that rapid prototyping is one of the most popular applications for 3D printing. For product design and product development, it has become standard practice to use a 3D printer for prototyping on almost a day basis. For the past six years, I've worked in product design and development. I know how great it is to have 3D printed parts to play around with when you develop a new product. One of my biggest challenges is communicating my design ideas and solutions to a client. No matter how hard I tried to explain, or how many hours I spend on rendering pretty images, creating fancy presentations, etc., the clients were still had trouble envisioning my designs. That's normal, though. Not all people can see, or are trained to see, the big picture from CAD screenshots, to fancy renders, to the product itself. But presenting your design through a 3D printed model is a different story. When clients see the 3D printed product for the first time, they get the “aha” moment, and put a happy smile on their faces, sometimes even acting like a little kid who got his long wanted toy. Now you probably know that 3D printed […]