Parametric Christmas Scene Ornament by wifibum

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is my first Christmas with a 3D printer, so I wanted to make something unique as gifts for family and friends. I have come to really like Openscad and it's my #1 choice currently for making objects. It does have it's quirks and limitations, but for the most part, I'm much more comfortable working with those limits then using a more traditional CAD application. The advantage is I was able to create a parametric ornament , where it's easy to customize a scene and text. I'm planning on putting each family's name custom on the ornament, and customizing the snowmen family based on the family I'm giving the ornament to.
Embedded in this scad are three modules for items to place in the scene. Trees, Snowpeople (male and female), and presents. Simply translate and scale as desired. I also used HarlanDMii's write.scad library to add text to the ornament.
So far, I have just printed in a solid color and then painted with sharpies. I didn't do any finishing, because I like the rough look. It looks made rather than fabricated. I am currently playing around with dual extrusion, I'll update if I get anything that looks cool.
Note: I had trouble with printing a globe without it detaching, so I put in the cone shaped supports and flattened the bottom of the globe a bit. If you don't have this issue, you can turn them off in the scad.
Note2: I defaulted the name in the SCAD and in the STL files to MakerBot of course!
Update1: I didn't have any bright Christmas colors for dual extrusion, but I wanted to give it a try. Anyway, I uploaded the STL files and a pic of my attempt. This is before any cleanup. I’ll clean up the outside, but probably leave most of the stray blue plastic in the scene, it kind of looks cool.