3D Printing and Ceramics

The final product.

Printing Meghan’s face.

It’s always exciting to see 3D printing and scanning in use with a new discipline on campus, so we were so happy to help Meghan Sullivan, Uihlein Fellow of Studio Art, try out a new project in the makerspace. Meghan had the idea of creating a 3D image of her face to use in ceramic design. The process in the makerspace was pretty straightforward once we figured out the nuances of our 3D scanner and software.

  1. Scanned Meghan’s face (we used the Scanify 3D scanner)
  2. Exported an STL file that could be 3D printed from the Studio 3D software. The Advanced version of the software is required to do this, since the option to volumize the file is necessary.
  3. Sliced the file in Cura, then printed it in the Ultimaker 2+.
  4. After it was printed, Meghan used the 3D printed object to create a mold.
  5. The mold was used to create a clay object.
  6. The clay object was then fired, painted, and glazed.

Meghan plans to have her ceramics students replicate this assignment in the future.