3D printable Eastern Front tank trap, with file

[Aksu]

Hullo,
I hope Leon et al don't mind me posting this here, but I don't think there is a competing product available at the moment. Anyway, Wulf was asking about 3d printable files on another thread, I thought I'd create a new one specifically for this test and file I made.

Maybe this post will be useful in showing my process for creating printable stuff. Anyway, one of the points raised was that it would be nice to print anti-tank barriers. I know there are concrete barriers available, but I thought it would be nice to make something for the Eastern Front, especially the Finnish fronts, where natural stone was used. There are still miles and miles of these near our summer cottage in Hanko. So, using this picture of Soviet POWs being marched to captivity in 1941 as a reference, I thought I'd model a base full of 10 mm scale rocks.


I made a 3D model using SideFX Houdini, a piece of software normally used for high-quality special effects, definitely overkill for this, but it is a package I know and use. About 90 mins later I had a basic framework in place, which allowed me to create whatever size barriers I wanted, with rocks of nicely organic shapes. This is what computer modeling is good for - repeating a basic shape but adding a bit of variation automatically.


I then saved the result as a printable file, and sent it to my printer. It estimated that it will take 1h 15 mins to print, and use a few meters of filament. Everything went smoothly, and here is the end result, hot off the printer without any cleaning done, with a couple of musketeers for scale.


And here is the ready to print file, if you want to try this out on a 3D printer. You probably want to right-click and "save as" for that link.

http://www.the-ancients.com/gemigabok/images/at_barrier_stone_4x8.stl

Cheers,
Aksu