AI 3D Printing

Have you ever wanted to 3D print, but haven’t learned the intricacies of 3D modeling yet? While there are lots of good free CAD software tutorials (and the Co-Lab studio staff are happy to help you), it can be time consuming and challenging to make certain shapes and detail levels that match the picture in your mind’s eye. But with the help of AI, your project can come to life in just a few steps! And don’t worry if you are not an AI expert, neither am I. If you’re someone with an idea that you want to be tangible, follow along and tinker around for yourself.

This process doesn’t require any 3D modeling or AI experience, all you need is to be able to prompt OpenAI for an image of the model you want. For example, I wanted a model of my dog in a costume. All I had to do was prompt ChatGPT to “create an image of a cocker spaniel wearing a bunny costume” and ask it to adjust anything in the image until I was happy with what it looked like (and isn’t it adorable?). 

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Then, I asked it to take the image and give me a front view, side view, and back view. With those images, I just fed them to this Hunyuan3D model and in a few seconds, my model was there in an STL format ready to go!

Of course, just because this model will generate a file does not mean it will print well. So, while your imagination can go wild, remember extremely fine detail and small features may not print successfully. If you have modeling experience, you can certainly adjust the model yourself in your CAD software of choice to be more printer friendly, or just ask ChatGPT to simplify your input images. But in my case, nothing needed to be modified, and the file printed out great!

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This would have taken a very long time to model on my own, and likely would not have turned out as well. So, if you have been wanting to 3D print and weren’t sure where to start, just think up what you want and give AI a chance to craft it up for you! And if you have never 3D printed before, check out the Co-Lab’s tutorial on Pathways or stop by a studio during staffed hours to learn how to send the model to a printer.