Stereographic Projection Jam Session: FreeCAD Modeling

Welcome to this week's Meetup where we'll make some 3D printable stereographic projection models using FreeCAD! We'll design a spherical object that casts a cool pattern onto a 2D surface. We can also adapt this to other geometric shapes and make fun patterns that can fill an entire room with our imagination!

I'll be using FreeCAD on my Vagon cloud PC to explore FreeCAD's Part Design workbench. If you've never used FreeCAD before, then this video can help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULWgMV9_TM .

Are you ready to glow – or flow?!

As always we're here to help lay the foundation for self-learning or future development. If you want to continue alone with any project from a prior week, then go for it, or let's build on it together. We'll also continue to introduce a fun project each Sunday using various CAD software. Let us know if you have any suggestions for future projects or wish to help co-host one.

We look forward to seeing you there or at the next one!

For those who have never been to Arch Reactor there will be pizza and drinks available in the kitchen. You can Venmo AR or drop cash in the donation box. If you do bring your own food and drinks, please make sure to clean-up after yourself. This is a shared space where members and the public may need access to clean surfaces while we're there.

https://archreactor.org
https://freecad.org
https://vagon.io

FreeCAD runs locally on Windows, Mac and Linux, but all of the apps on Vagon can run on any modern browser. FreeCAD is open source and completely free to use. Vagon currently has Windows and Mac desktop apps for boosted performance, but a Linux version is underway. There's a small fee to use Vagon ($1 for a 7-day trial, then starts at $8/mo subscription with 5GB file storage and also a $0.25–$13.09/hr usage rate for general to high-end GPUs) for all of the apps we'll be test driving in the series.

(PS: You don't need to subscribe to Vagon to attend. Just install FreeCAD)

I will have an extra laptop with pre-installed apps for someone to borrow for the event. I will be using my Chromebook at the rate of $1/hr to test out FreeCAD as well as future sculpting and animation apps like ZBrush & Blender – so stay tuned for those events!

Sample Vagon Event Series Apps

• Archicad
• Blender
• FreeCAD
• Houdini
• Rhino
• SketchUp
• Unity
• Unreal Engine
• ZBrush

(Image is borrowed from https://www.printables.com/model/167505-stereographic-projection-grid . You can check out more of Henry's work @ https://www.printables.com/@henryseg or https://sketchfab.com/henryseg or www.segerman.org .)