How to 3D Print a Fully Colored Heart: with Texture + Clear Together. (Part 1)
This is the first tutorial to help those who have a color 3D printer like the J750 Stratasys. How they can get the best results from their printers.
In this tutorial, we will not teach you how to model a heart. We only teach you how to prepare the file for printing and also what to do for post-processing after printing.
-
Step 1: Overview
You can get a ready-made 3D heart file from sites that sell 3D files or design it yourself.
Note that the file you buy or design must have Texture and UV Mapping.
-
Step 2: Model Preparation
If you want the vessels to be shown much more prominently and accurately, the quality of the texture must first be very high and then do displacement mapping. To do this, you can either use 3D software itself such as Maya, Blender, etc., or you can do it with Zbrush software.
We did the Displacement mapping model here. But we want the vessels and some details of the heart to pop up more. To do this, export the model in Obj format And open it in Zbrush software.
-
Step 3: Make Some Changes in the Zbrush
Now we import our model into the ZBrush.
We change the Color of the material to white.
Import the texture of the model.
From the right side in the Tool section, click on the Texture map option and select the texture that we imported.
In the next step, from the right side in the Tool section, click on the Masking option and click on the Make By Intensity option. Now select the Inverse option.
By doing this, we create a mask of texture, and by reversing it, the prominent surfaces of the model, such as the vessels, are ready to make some changes. Now, if you draw on the model with a standard brush, you will notice that vessels are becoming more prominent, and in some places, they have remained unchanged.
When we are satisfied with the result, from the Zplugin menu, in the 3D Print Hub section, click on Export options. Turn off the Export to separate files option. Then click Export to VRML.
