What program is being used to create these cookie cutters?

[Bryon Miller]

What program is being used to create these cookie cutters?  I'm positive this seller is taking images and making cutters.  I want to convert some of my brothers drawings into cookie cutters.  Is there a program being used to produce these?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/166527931/iron-man-cookie-cutter-great-for-cutting?ref=shop_home_active

[Dan Newman]

If you are a Mac user, there's

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24639

Dan

[Brian33433]

Pretty easy with any 3d cad program, my choice for ease would be Solidworks (simple sketch and extrude)

B.

[Jay]

You would need some kind of Raster to Vector conversion for importing into your CAD...then you extrude it and save as an STL (like how I made that sound easy?)

Here's one...there's a lot of them out there...

http://www.scan2cad.com/?gclid=CMKso6G_yLoCFUGd4AodqDUAiQ

Cheers

Jay

On Saturday, November 2, 2013 10:01:28 PM UTC-4, Bryon Miller wrote:

[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

When I make stamps for https://www.etsy.com/listing/159376488/custom-soap-stamp-with-logo my process is to import the image into inkscape, use the trace bitmap option, save and import the SVG into Blender, extrude. For this I would probably also have to solidify the lines and isolate the outside edge. The advantage to this process is all the software is free.

[PrettySmallThings]

Using tinkercad to extrude the SVG is another free option.

[Bryon Miller]

Thanks for all the info everyone.  I really want to make some stamps and cookie cutters for myself.  I have 3dsmax, photoshop, illustrator & I just got ahold of Solidworks (Forget trying to make Raspi cases in 3dsmax, THIS is MUCH better!), so I'm sure I have all the software, I just didn't know the process.  I only really used 3dsmax for video post stuff in the past so I'm not very good at modeling at all, but solidworks seems to be easier to set dimensions and place things in the right spot so that they will line up and everything when I print them and put the pieces together.

Are there any tutorials available on how to do this?  Once an image is converted to an SVG, are you able to select portions of the image like polygons and just extrude up?  I can do that in max no problem, but I want to do this in solidworks so I can set the depth of the pieces to specific mm instead of guess work if possible.

[Clinton Hoines]

You'll really want to use a CAD program for something like this, 3DS is not really for this type of work. You can make it work it'll just be far more of pain than other programs.

[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

I disagee. If you're already using a tool that can do the job you'll be better off doing that than learning a new tool.

[Bryon Miller]

So I started messing around with Illustrator and Solidworks.  This is going to take a learning curve for sure.  I went online looking for more information and found exactly what I need, but I don't understand it at all.  It has to do with Openscad which I downloaded.  This program doesn't make any sense to me, but I don't know anything at all about programming.

It's so confusing to me, I don't even understand the process and it is explained in step by step detail.  I feel even more at a loss after reading about it and I know that this is exactly what I am needing.  Here is a link to the blog that explains it.

http://softsolder.com/2012/11/09/automated-cookie-cutters-putting-it-all-together/

Can all that code be pasted into Openscad, compiled or ran somehow and I only have to provide the grayscale image?  Or do I have to know how to code to do this?

Does that article make any sense to everyone else?

[PrettySmallThings]

I found this link - looks like solid works has a trace option: http://www.caddedge.com/blog/bid/67472/How-to-Trace-a-Picture-into-SolidWorks-Using-AutoTrace-Raster-to-Vector

Or, just create 2d line work in solid works and extrude to your liking - if your artwork isn't solid blocks of color, you'll be better eroff just drawing what you want.

The tinkercad route:
In tinkercad, you spec the extrusion of the svg when you import - so if you want different depths, you'll need to plan two different svgs and join them together after import.

[Joseph Chiu]

A while back, there were a bunch of work to make lithophanes from bitmaps. I wonder if they could do the job by suitably coloring the source image to fixed levels?

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[Jetguy]

A few thoughts to keep in mind since a few folks get all hung up over safety:

The nozzles are brass and in theory contain lead. (Personally, the idea is so far out there that you would get any contamination it's more likely to get struck by lightning)

The plastic could contain chemicals that might harm you (same theory here, you probably will get killed by an idiot texting on a cellphone while driving before this gives you cancer)

A real one that I do believe in, the ridges in the plastic when printed can trap bacteria and other nasties. The fact that you cannnot then properly clean this in say a dishwasher on the hot cycle (especially with PLA)proves to be even more problematic.

Given that cookie dough contains eggs and salmonella is a very real threat, the above statement that cracks and crevices will exist and cannot be cleaned is a problem if you attempt to use the cookie cutter more than one baking session.

 

So in general, I personally ignore the first 2 and believe honestly, all the talk, discussions, and scare around that is about the "unknown". I cannot prove it doesn't harm you other than a healthy dose of common sense, they have no proof it does harm you either. We could discuss until we are blue in the face.

 

 have no problem drinking from a printed cup, eating with a printed fork or knife, but say only use it once and then throw it away since we just don't have a good way to clean out the crevices.

Since a cookie cutter is so thin walled and reasonably a decent sized print, natural PLA becomes a better choice in plastic for this type of project IMO.

 

Acetone vapor smoothing could work on ABS, but I think the thin walls and larger size are just going to result in a warped mess before acetone vapor can even be thought about.

[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

Lithophanes don't do quite vertical changes. Plus they're converting from bitmaps so you'll end up with jaggy edges. But besides these things they'd work perfect.

[Nick Cecchi]

Trace in a CAD program, extrude. It's pretty straightforward.

To make food-safe parts you will want to print a part, finish the surface, take a mold (I like VytaFlex Urethane rubber around 50A), then cast some hard food-safe plastic into the mold to get your finished product. I would recommend Smooth-On liquid rubbers and plastics, but there are lots of places to find the materials you will need.

[Subtlefly]

Hey you can import line from illustrator into 3ds max and then extrude, unless I am missing something should be really easy
Cheers
Sub

[kyo]

Take an image, insert it into a drawing in solidworks, trace it (just draw lines over it), offset the lines to give you thickness, extrude.

Shouldn't take more than 10-20 minutes max for any of the ones on that site.. they just aren't that complicated.

[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

On Tuesday, November 5, 2013 11:07:28 PM UTC-7, kyo wrote:

Take an image, insert it into a drawing in solidworks, trace it (just draw lines over it), offset the lines to give you thickness, extrude.

Shouldn't take more than 10-20 minutes max for any of the ones on that site.. they just aren't that complicated.

You willing to put that assertion to the test? I'm sorry, but when you make claims poo-pooing the difficulty of a task you have either have never created anything or you've never paid attention to the time to do it. So test it. Make one. And time the process. In fact use a screen capture software to record the process for science.

I'm predicting a 1 hour minimum what you're talking about there. And that's not even counting the time to find a suitable image or print it, test it, and adjust the process to make it more successful next time. Once you have the process figured out, if you can automate many of the steps, then, yes, you may be able to crank one out in 20 minutes. Maybe.

[Bryon Miller]

Thank goodness, I was thinking I must really be terrible at this if it takes me so long to make these.

I've got a decent workflow down on this for not knowing anything about the programs, and it takes way longer than 30 minutes.  Using Vector Magic is part of that process and it automatically traces the lines of bitmaps, jpegs, gifs etc and converts them to vector gfx so that they can be saved as a DXF and imported into Solidworks.  I also use Illustrator and Photoshop to prepare the images for processing in Vector Magic, then you have to clean up the results in vector magic.  I am so clueless of the tools in Solidworks I can't even find transforms to move the constraints around, so I have imported some of the results into 3dstudio max just so I can access the transform tools so I can move the constraints.  I can add points and move them in max.  I'm sure I can do it in solidworks, I just haven't figured it out because I know how to do it in max so I just use that.

I've made a few of them already,  I've spent anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours on them so far.  So I can do 45 minutes or so, but the most difficult part of that is automated with vector magic.  Without that, I'd be spending a LONG time tracing. 

A question about splines if anyone knows.  When I was trying to learn studio max years ago (I think it was on release R3 back then)  Spline modeling seemed difficult to me because it was very important to use a proper path while creating the lines for your splines, or I seem to remember reading this.  For example, the lines could look visually the same on the screen, but depending on the way you created that line, it could effect the way it created geometry.    Was that a rule that was limited to Spline modeling within the 3dsmax enviornment?  Or is this how Spline modeling works?  I don't know if it matters on this particular type of modeling since I'm only extruding up along the z axis.  I think it may have been in reference to cross section modeling, but it was so long ago I can't remember.  If particular paths are important, then perhaps the automation with vector magic will cause problems on more complex images.


I was hoping someone who uses Solidworks would be willing to help a noob,  I'm not sure how to get my design to the right dimensions once I have the DXF file created.  I open the DXF in Solidworks and I have the splines.  Is there a way to uniformly scale it down on x,y so that I can set a specific size?  I end up making a nice model, but then when I bring it into makerware, or netfabb or whatever program, the item is always huge, so large it has to be rescaled to fit the build plate.  I can uniformly scale the model in makerware, then turn off uniform scale and adjust the height of the z axis.  But the problem seems to be that I can't get the detail I wanted from the original design because the scaling on the x,y plane has thinned the walls of everything.  I'm sure it's online, I just don't even know what to search for, everything I've found refers to scaling images and not the splines within a dxf itself.

[kyo]

You shouldn't assume that because -you- can't do something, that others can't. I work in solidworks for a living, though this requires no special skills.

19 minutes 43.05 seconds.. and that's with a few stupid mistakes in the process.

(oh, the etsy artist totally stole that iron man layout from google.. took 5 seconds to find the exact image they used)

I can screen cap the process if you really need it.

In retrospect I'd probably fiddle with the thicknesses in various areas a little just to give it a better feel.. but my point stands.

I also wasn't trying to discredit time spent on stuff like this, simply point out that people were -way- over complicating things and offering a simpler, faster solution.

Kyle

[kyo]

The .stl for anybody who wants it.. I only extruded it I think 10mm, you'd probably want to go a good bit more depending on what you're doing with it.

[Bryon Miller]

Could someone tell me how to do this in solidworks?  I'm trying to scale my dxf splines so that the character is 90 mm high.  How can this be done?  In the picture I dimmed out a line to show the size I need to scale to, but I don't know how to do it.  Can this be done?

[kyo]

There is nothing like 'free transform' that you'd find in photoshop, but there is a semi-convoluted way to get pretty close.

Take a dimension from the very top of your drawings, to the very bottom. Then do some math.. 90 / x = scale factor. with x being the dimension of your current drawing. Then, select the drawing, go to Tools > Sketch Tools > Scale.

Set that number as your scale size, then select a point on the drawing (say the bottom point for instance) as a reference point.

That should get you pretty close to the result you're looking for.

If you were using my method of simply tracing a drawing within solidworks, you'd have scaled the drawing down to the proper size first (easier to do, just drag the corner down until it's the right size) and it'd be a bit easier.

Kyle

[Big Bonenfant]

WOW Can you say Copyright infringement - The one thing bad about 3d printing is everyone wants to sell items That Are Not There Own Design & Models 

[BTHOON]

Here's a method you can use.  I realize I'm ignoring a lot of the discussion below, but wanted to throw this in here in case any novices want a solution to the problem that's very straightforward and easy.

For this example, I used Inkscape and Tinkercad (just as PrettySmallThings recommended).  It assumes a vector file as input.  

Take a look at the video tutorial at: http://youtu.be/PffWg1MApM4

[BTHOON]

Oh - and here's the link to the Tinkercad file.  Not sure if this URL will work, but here goes:
https://tinkercad.com/things/7zIAHoI4MRb-pumpkin-cookie-cutter

[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

On Thursday, November 7, 2013 1:52:51 PM UTC-7, BTHOON wrote:

Oh - and here's the link to the Tinkercad file.  Not sure if this URL will work, but here goes:
https://tinkercad.com/things/7zIAHoI4MRb-pumpkin-cookie-cutter


On Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:48:18 PM UTC-8, BTHOON wrote:

Here's a method you can use.  I realize I'm ignoring a lot of the discussion below, but wanted to throw this in here in case any novices want a solution to the problem that's very straightforward and easy.

For this example, I used Inkscape and Tinkercad (just as PrettySmallThings recommended).  It assumes a vector file as input.  

Take a look at the video tutorial at: http://youtu.be/PffWg1MApM4

Let me just say you are really good at inkscape. I need to fiddle more with that program.

[Andrew Morrow]

I used it to create a pseudo datasheet for a Sparkfun product once: http://dlnmh9ip6v2uc.cloudfront.net/datasheets/Components/General/SparkfunCOM-08653_Datasheet.pdf

After that, I feel nothing can stop me.   That took me easily 10 hours.  Learned the program pretty well, though!

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[Joe Larson (aka Cymon)]

On Wednesday, November 6, 2013 1:07:54 PM UTC-7, kyo wrote:

You shouldn't assume that because -you- can't do something, that others can't. I work in solidworks for a living, though this requires no special skills.

19 minutes 43.05 seconds.. and that's with a few stupid mistakes in the process.

You kinda proved your point, and kinda proved my point. I mean you got *something* in under 20 minutes, and good on you for that. but it's not finished. Now, speeding through it like you would to prove a point you can probably finish this up with a slightly taller outside wall, fat base (so you don't cut your hands pressing it) and maybe even a beveled cutting edge you could probably do the job in 5 or 10 minutes. So good job, you did it.

[Joseph Chiu]

Nice!

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[kyo]

I'm not sure why this part of the thread is continuing, but just to be clear.. you didn't prove anything.

The wall height is a 5 second adjustment (literally, it's a couple button clicks). I wouldn't give it a fatter base, there isn't a reason for it.. you aren't dealing with razor sharp sheet metal, it's something being pressed into very soft stuff.. but I guess if you wanted it, add 1 minute. Add a couple more if you want a bevel on the cut, but again it's soft material, not sure the point.

What I'd have spent another 5 minutes on, is changing the wall thicknesses to give more accent to details vs. the side walls. My mistake in building it added about 5 minutes, so call it a wash and we're still under 20. My 'max' time is 1/3rd of your 'minimum' time.

To the actual point of this thread.. the method I provided is the easiest method, and the fastest by quite a lot. The only skills you need is the knowledge of how to use splines in drawings, how to insert an image as a background element to trace over, how to use the offset command, and the extrude command. That's it. You don't need to spend hours creating vector paths in some other program first, it's -far- more work than is required for something like this.

[BTHOON]

"To the actual point of this thread.. the method I provided is the easiest method, and the fastest by quite a lot. "

WELLLLLLLLLL.....

4min 2 seconds :) and that included screen-shotting your STL,  extracting a vector from the BMP, and putting the copyright notice on there. So, you're going to have to convince folks that easiest and fastest are adjectives that apply here.

"The only skills you need is the knowledge of how to use splines in drawings, how to insert an image as a background element to trace over, how to use the offset command, and the extrude command. That's it. You don't need to spend hours creating vector paths in some other program first, it's -far- more work than is required for something like this."

... And a $4,000 program?  On the far more difficult bit?  Demonstrably false. Even if you add in the ~30 seconds for converting a bitmap to a vector file.  (http://youtu.be/PffWg1MApM4)

Now, where is your method better than mine (as shown in the YouTube link)?  Mine doesn't have a direct method in the tool set I am demonstrating to make the individual cutting edges come to a point to be sharper.   That might be cool!   Necessary, nah, but if I were going to sell something, I'd insist on that.   I'd need to do that painstakingly in Sketchup with the STL I've created here.

The issue, KYO, is that you came in not really trying to help, but SEEMINGLY to show off a bit, and I'm honestly sorry if I'm reading it wrong.  When a beginner asks for help in recreating something they've seen, telling them how easy it is to do (by hand tracing???) in a $4,000 application isn't necessarily what they're looking for.  In all honesty, CYMON's suggestion with Blender is what I've used in the past to great success.  it's fiddly, but I ASSURE you, no more fiddly for this task than Solid Works.  I know both. Trust me.

If you really want to do a speed test, try me, but this isn't about speed.  It's about a novice user who is clearly experiencing the "Solid Works Learning Curve of Death" right now wanting to do something specific.   Lets all just enjoy the cookies, eh?

[kyo]

I hadn't seen your post when I replied, pretty cool. I was mostly responding directly to Joe, although also to the really complicated vector tracing stuff that has been posted as well.

How does your method work when you don't have a simple image though? Clipart is easy enough, but if you are trying to trace from a photo or something?

And you don't need SolidWorks for my method, that's just what I use. Any program capable of drawing splines should work just fine. 

I don't need to show off, that wasn't the point. I only did the speed test because Joe directly ask for it.. he was trying to assert that this simply HAD to be a complicated and time consuming thing to do, that it COULDN'T POSSIBLY be fast and easy. I think we've both proven that point nicely.

[BTHOON]

It tends to scale fairly well, actually.   The Iron Man was about as complicated as you'd ever want a cookie cutter to be, and it was around 2 minutes in Inkscape.   The only real pitfalls are not knowing which order to select things in when you do your operations, and I cover that a bit in the video.

When I made the Iron Man above, I started from a screenshot of the STL you posted, not from an SVG.  From that screenshot to an SVG was about 20 seconds, though.  The Trace Bitmap function in Inkscape is really quite excellent.

It IS worth noting that there appear to be 7 deleted messages in this thread, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing some context.

[kyo]

I meant what if you have something that doesn't have clean edges already? Say you wanted to convert a full animated character and you didn't have some line art laying around?

Some artistic license is required in those circumstances so is be impressed if you could simplify that process of making the line art.

My method has the added flexibility in that you only need something to draw on top of, every image becomes a template. Obviously your method is awesome for the times when you have clean art though.

[Andrew Morrow]

There's very little that is too dirty for this process.  I'm continually amazed.  Add in the fact that you've already got a more capable drawing / tracing application than Solidworks (in Inkscape) and you're good no matter what.  You can trace just as easily (easier, honestly) in Inkscape and end up with the same SVG that can then be extruded in Tinkercad, Blender, etc.  

[Bryon Miller]

I know it's been a while, but I've gotten more familar with Solidworks now.  By chance do you have the solidworks file for this?

I have stopped using vector magic because it was a huge pain since the image had to be rescaled prior to tracing and it was just making too many points to edit.

So I trace an image and offset the lines.  I'm having difficulty figuring out settings in relation to actual printing because the model will look great on the screen, but will have holes and imperfections when actually printed.  Most notably, I can't seem to find the proper "girth" of the walls for these cookie cutters.  I've tried 2 mm and that seems pretty wide, if I use 1.0 mm the walls don't seem to close on the top, there's a gap and food will get stuck in those gaps.  If I put it at .4mm it seems to make a decent wall that is thin.  Why doesn't the plastic close on the top?  Is it because I have to make the walls a multiple of .4 since the diamater hole in the nozzle is .4 mm?

What is a good girth to set the walls of a cookie cutter at to be printed on a makerbot?  I know automated programs that are being used do it fine, I don't have a mac so I can't use the automated openscad program on Thingiverse and my emulated mac works for everything except that one program.  When I was trying to use vector magic, the resulting vectors created decent walls, but I can't scale the splines once an image has been traced.

I feel like an idiot because this is difficult to me and it seems like something a child could do with 10 minutes of education.

On Wednesday, November 6, 2013 1:10:30 PM UTC-7, kyo wrote:

[Dan Newman]

If you have a Mac, then use OmNomNom Creator,

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24639

Dan

[David Celento]

Bryon,

Since you have Illustrator, my favorite method to convert images is to use the Live Trace feature. Fiddle with the settings a bit to reduce the point count for the lines, adjusting them as desired. I then export the vector linework into a 3D modeling environment as a DXF or DWG file. Then extrude, offset, cap, etc.

The most time consuming part is cleaning up the resulting lines when one traces any type of artwork. Rarely do they extrude without a few small challenges. I like Rhinoceros for 3D work, and it cleans up vector lines nicely before bumping them into 3D. I suspect Solidworks has similar capabilities.

The earlier discussion in this thread, a sort of "time-shootout", is interesting. Optimizing the workflow is probably useful if one creates a number of these items, but any project of "one" inevitably takes much longer than one imagines, I know all too well. So, don't sweat this part. Focus on any process that works for now.

~Dave

[PrettySmallThings]

If you're designing objects with thin walls, keep the width of the extrusion in mind.  You have a .4mm nozzle - and a threadwidth that is calculated at .4mm.  2x threadwidths = .8mm.  You'll be much happier with walls at designed at this dimension.

[Steve_Criz]

Wouldn't it be possible to print with 100% infill - hence negating the need to be concerned with wall thickness?

And isn't the max print precision of a bot like the Rep 2/2X 0.1mm even if the extrusion dia is 0.4mm?  Wouldn't that mean that for something like a cookie cutter, the major concerns at printing time would be, "have I designed the model to work efficiently as a cookie cutter" and perhaps, "should I change the infill amount to print a hollow or solid object, and consider changing the number of shells (add more to print a thicker more solid exterior face) to adjust the wall thickness if I decide to print hollow?

MBI's Makerware seems like it's pretty good at reducing the amount of 'brain work' required before committing to a print.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[PrettySmallThings]

Sort of.  

First, If you're slicing objects with thin walls, make sure to dial down the number of shells to one, so you don't end up with un-fillable voids.  

When you're talking about thin walls, you have single extrusion walls, double extrusion walls, and perimeters with fill.  

I did some of my own tests with replicator G and my Rep 1 last spring.  .3mm-.67mm walls are printed one extrusion thick.  .68mm-.98mm printed as 2 extrusions, and above .99mm printed as 2 perimeters with infill.  And just below the threshold where the infill starts, the two extrusions are frequently not welded together in my prints.  There's a trouble zone right around 1mm for many printers.  Maybe if I spent a bunch of time measuring filament diameter, or calibrating my extruder this wouldn't happen - anybody want to weight in on that? The numbers may be somewhat different with maker ware.  Makerware also has "spurs" which fill in voids with thread width, not infill, which you can enable in a custom profile 

I generally advocate for optimizing design - especially if you want to do a lot of this kind of thing. That .01mm difference between a wall that is 2 extrusions thick, and a wall that is 2 extrusions + infill, will dramatically increase the print time.  

Slic3r lets you change the thread width for a given print - that .4mm nozzle can make a subtly thicker or thinner line.  So you can optimize your slicing for a particular wall thickness easily - but this isn't straightforward in maker ware or RepG.

[David Celento]

Agreed with PrettySmallThings' advice -- there is no substitute for precise modeling.

That said, "slicing" profiles (or "tooling", in CAD/CAM parlance) can offer significantly different outcomes for any digital model. This aspect is often overlooked and can be useful when unique conditions are encountered or desired. Tweaking these settings (beyond the basic options) requires getting under the hood in most slicers and into the variables used in underlying scripts. Experimentation and good notes can pay big dividends when tweaking variables -- you may not always get what you want, but you'll gain a lot of insight into the complexity of 3D printing with extrusion methods.

For instance, ever notice the really fat bead on the first layer of a raft? This is far wider than the nozzle diameter and taller than the layer thickness for the rest of the print, and is the result of a very slow move with continuous extrusion. Theoretically, one could make a custom profile to do an entire print using this method (with some experimentation) but it would be very slow and lack good detail.

Better to model exactly what you want and then optimize the slicing profile (if necessary) to address any special conditions.

~Dave

[PrettySmallThings]

Dave - I think your points about slicing/tooling/CAM are spot on - but I personally come to the exact opposite conclusion.  If i'm designing 25 parts in a day, I would never want to spend time tweaking a profile for each - I have a set of design rules so all the parts will print well on the same profile.  

But both approaches are valid, and it really depends on what you're doing.  I rarely "prototype" - I design for FFF 3D printers.  Prototypers benefit much more from Dave's approach.  

You can solve printing problems from both sides, CAD or CAM, and you have to understand how the slicer works in order to do either.   

[David Celento]

PrettySmallThings is absolutely right. "Design Rules" are a MUCH preferred way to go, I agree.

Personally, I only tweak a profile when I encounter repeat failures on a desired object. Usually this means constant "air print" failures on small detailed objects.

The Holy Grail of FFF printing is to use only one slicer and have one profile for each layer thickness that will work for any kind of model. Dream on, right! :-)

As many have discovered the hard way, including me -- when using different filament and printing radically different objects, profiles that worked well for one condition suddenly don't work. Add to this different versions of MW and it's easy to get utterly lost amid numerous variable changes.

The first instinct is to blame the machine, forgetting that it may simply be the slicing profile as I've recently discovered. And this is my central point, actually. 

MW (which I like in many, but not all ways) has undergone some HUGE changes over the last few months causing no end of grief for some, me included. The stock profiles are (for some models) "good", but not yet "great". 

A few wishes for MW:

A) My sense is that MBI is using too few models to test their settings. Detailed and small models should be better tested, and at all layer thicknesses. (And MBI would do well to create a few Torture Test models that can be shared with users to compare results when troubleshooting). 

B) I would prefer a detailed Change Log that includes variable changes with each MW release, so the user could better assess the pros/cons of each new version and the code tweaks. Trying to decipher what is different between versions is nothing short of maddening. (Currently, hours and hours of testing in one version is rendered null and void with each new version, discouraging upgrading!)

C) If MBI does not want to add easy access to filament diameter and packing ratio to the variables that one can easily tweak in the advanced setting, they should at least add a field to permit changing the extrusion amount. (Decreasing this by as little as 10% has solved hours and hours and hours of failed air prints for me)

D) Love the new preview feature. MW is feeling more and more like a proper tooling software. Would very much like to be able to also view one layer at a time to decipher tricky layers more easily. 

Happy New Year!!!

~Dave

Sent from mobile device inspiring brevity and/or typos...

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[Bryon Miller]

Thanks.  I made a few cookie cutters in Solidworks now and this width works very well.

[Justin Leone]

I think the reason for a fatter base isn't so much to prevent hurting your hand, so much as giving the cookie cutter more structure to keep it from bending.  Depending on the shape, the entire thing could potentially deform.  The Iron Man shape, for instance, doesn't have any lines cutting diagonally across the middle, so if the walls are thin, the whole thing could shear horizontally.

All in all, though, this is probably a minor issue, and if it weren't a very simple addition, it probably wouldn't be worth doing.   I'm still pretty new to Solidworks, but it seems like it'd be as quick as creating a new sketch from the top face, offsetting all the sketch entities by a bit, and adding another extruded feature using the new sketch.

[Bryon Miller]

With the advise that was provided to me earlier in this thread, setting the offset to around .8 creates a decent wall.  Then in area's of concern, I just use the rectangle tool in sketch to make a base that is extruded 1 mm high for the pieces to build on top of.  Just trim up the sketch before extruding and it seems to work pretty well.  I just made a trilobite cookie cutter I'm happy with using .8mm offset with a 1mm high cross section.