For my birthday, I got a 3D printer. They are really great for prototyping etc. The only downside is that they are a bit slow.
Fusion360 is a a great tool for creating models. It is free for people in my situation and hobbyists and people in education. One of the things I wanted however was to create gears. In one of their example apps, they have a spur gear creator, but it didn't really support undercuts that happen with high modulus gears and other stuff I wanted. I then thought I could improve upon it and create my own and maybe publish it to the store. I even created a holder type pattern so they could be easily CNC routed...
Fusion360 is a a great tool for creating models. It is free for people in my situation and hobbyists and people in education. One of the things I wanted however was to create gears. In one of their example apps, they have a spur gear creator, but it didn't really support undercuts that happen with high modulus gears and other stuff I wanted. I then thought I could improve upon it and create my own and maybe publish it to the store. I even created a holder type pattern so they could be easily CNC routed...
It took couple of days coding effort in C++. I really like the API and found it quite easy to do the stuff I wanted to do. You can use java script or python, but I'm more comfortable with C++.
As a bit of a spin off, I created a windows store app specifically for laser cutters... LaserGearCreator I think I've had one download, but really it is just another tool for me to use and why not create it professionally and eat your own dog food so to speak.
I submitted my "add in" to the Autodesk store a couple of times. The first time, it got knocked back because of the name and icon. They thought "FunkyGearCreator" didn't sound professional enough and they didn't like the wombat icon and suggested that I get one professionally made and follow their guide lines. The first icon looked like this...
As a bit of a spin off, I created a windows store app specifically for laser cutters... LaserGearCreator I think I've had one download, but really it is just another tool for me to use and why not create it professionally and eat your own dog food so to speak.
I submitted my "add in" to the Autodesk store a couple of times. The first time, it got knocked back because of the name and icon. They thought "FunkyGearCreator" didn't sound professional enough and they didn't like the wombat icon and suggested that I get one professionally made and follow their guide lines. The first icon looked like this...
OK, fair enough, I agree. So I submitted it again with a name change to SpurGearCreator and our new logo. This is our logo (at the bottom) and how it looks in Fusion 360...
It got rejected as well :/ I couldn't really see how it was in violation of the guidelines so I just asked for a bit of assistance and suggested I might have to walk away since I clearly didn't get it. Fortunately the nice people replied and suggested I pull up MSPaint and try my best with a photo of one of the gears I submitted (the one above). I retook a photo and I ended up with this...
They got back to me and logo acceptable. Now they suggested a few usability tweaks that I have happily done and wanted a few videos...
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I got some more use-ability type feedback from the Autodesk person. They are really quite helpful and I'm pretty impressed that they are willing to spend time for me. One the suggestions was to put the body into move mode just after creating the gear. this is because it gets created at the origin and the user will want to move it. It makes sense. the other issue is that because it creates it at the origin, it can muck up anything that exists there. I fixed this one as well. Lots of playing around, the examples are pretty good, but they don't cover everything. I actually encountered these issues myself, an can see how they would benefit the end user.
I'm not actually planing on making my millions here, but I am interested in paid work in this area.
I'm not actually planing on making my millions here, but I am interested in paid work in this area.