The document provides a tutorial on using SketchUp to edit an existing .stl file of a Keyblade from the video game Kingdom Hearts to prepare it for 3D printing. It describes the process of importing the .stl file into SketchUp, which caused frustration due to program freezing. It then details the author's struggles to view and select parts of the model in order to delete unnecessary portions and ready it for printing. Links to additional tutorials used in the process are provided at the end.

1. 3D Printing Tutorial
Joey Ingrassia

2. My goal here is to repurpose and edit a public .stl file to be 3D printing ready. I
used a few tutorials (as I find that not one had everything that I needed) that
aided me in this endeavor. I will do this in the program SketchUp. The video
game enthusiast that I am, I found a file of a miniature Keyblade from the
Kingdom Hearts franchise to edit and prepare.
Ideally, it will look something like this.

3. Download screen. The file was only about 80
MB, or less than 1/10 of a Gigabyte.

4. Start up screen. Here, I chose what type of
project to do. Obviously, I picked the one that
had 3D in the title.

5. Ah, this screen took up about 45 minutes of
frustration. The program froze about 12 times.
That (Not Responding) still haunts me.

6. Truly the bane of my and my computer’s
existince.

7. Finally! The program accepted my .stl file into
the system. Don’t see it? It’s that itty bitty little
guy at the bottom of the box.

8. 1 hour in, and it’s finally starting to look like
something I can print.

9. So I stumbled around for about 10 minutes
trying to find a way to change my view, too
proud to look up directions. I’d like to say that I
figured it out on my own… I’d like to…

10. Leave it to Disney to ruin anything cool that they
produce with shameless advertising. Now I got
to figure out how to delete part of a .stl file.
Should be easy enough.

11. NOPE! NOT EASY! I go to click some of the lines
and shapes to delete, and they all get selected. I
want to select a bunch of them, and only one
gets picked. This took WAY longer than I want to
admit. At least now it ready to be printed.

12. Links to Tutorials Used
• http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Using_SketchUp_for_3D_printing
• http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sketchup-stl
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STOvoOaxHTQ