3D printing ships n stuff

[lordmuffin]

So at my local mall area, they have a place that has a 3D printer. I've printed some things, and was wondering if SQUAD would implement some kind of thing to make our ships printable. (Like some kind of new file format or a converter)

I, for one, would think that would be AWESOME!

I would love to print my craft and stuff.

[zekes]

I would so love to print some of my ships, sadly I don't think this will be a planned feature. Talk to some modders mabye?

[Spartwo]

I would have a room dedicated to 3d printed ships.

[Megalodon 720]

I... I want a model Victory so much now.

But then again, I don't have a 3D printer.

[Whirligig Girl]

Technically, .craft file is a new file format, but really it's just a glorified .cfg file.

A .craft+mu=.blend Converter or something of that nature would be nice. You'd input the .mu's of the parts of the ship and give it the craft file and the software would make it a blender model or something. You could then edit the model to make it 3D-Print safe and print it.

Maybe the .mu's wouldn't have to be copied manually from the part folders, but instead it would just read all the .mu's from KSP_Win/Gamedata.

But yeah, a ship printing service would be cool. I think at least the iconic Kerbal X rocket should be made a 3D print.

[nli2work]

it's doable at the moment, just time consuming. you have to import the parts into blender, assemble the ship in blender, then export to OBJ or FBX, then either hope the printing place does a good job fixing the file for print, or fix the print file yourself. Since cost is per volume, it's best if you print a shell, or print small. The color printing options at the moment isn't great either, texture resolution are not great, the material is flimsy, and colors fade quickly. Tools are there, there's just no 3-click solution at the moment.

[LitaAlto]

I see "Kerbal Space Printout" in the future of some dev....

[kerbiloid]

Also this small but important thing is a must-have for any KSP player dweller.

http://i.imgur.com/EJ38MM2.jpg

( That's from http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66502-Kerbonov-Kn-2-Cockpit-Module ).

[Porkjet]

Technically, .craft file is a new file format, but really it's just a glorified .cfg file.

A .craft+mu=.blend Converter or something of that nature would be nice. You'd input the .mu's of the parts of the ship and give it the craft file and the software would make it a blender model or something. You could then edit the model to make it 3D-Print safe and print it.

Maybe the .mu's wouldn't have to be copied manually from the part folders, but instead it would just read all the .mu's from KSP_Win/Gamedata.

But yeah, a ship printing service would be cool. I think at least the iconic Kerbal X rocket should be made a 3D print.

Cool idea, and would seem possible, but I think the difficult bit would be making the model 'watertight' for 3D printing, Ideally, all the meshes that are 'inside' the ship like all end caps of connection points would have to be deleted and the hulls merged togethert o make one single sealed model. That's just speculation tho, maybe theres a quick and dirty way.

What would also be awesome, having the entire part library printed out as individual pieces and be able to connect them like Legos

[nli2work]

a watertight file isn't too hard. hard part is making sure all the little widgets and doodads like RCS blocs are large enough to print, and antennas aren't too thin. if money was no object, you can just print a 20" solid piece and not worry about thin walls or details meeting minimum size requirement; but not many people have a few grand to drop on such an endeavor. since it's not free to print, it's not something modders can do easily without IP issues.