I have no idea if it's realistic, but I just like the look of two turnouts crossing each other, and figured this would be the place to put it on the layout! Okay, so now that I'm out of cork, what to do? well, bridges! Let's begin with this one... In this particular place, behind the yard, I've already selected a Kato Single Plate Girder as the bridge. However, the incline complicated things a bit for building the abutments. Where the abutments for that Truss bridge took me very little time to design in the 3D design software, this one took me a bit more due to the angles involved. But I think I got it! So in this case, I started with replicating the Kato bridge dimensions into the software. After that, it was just the matter of building around those dimensions, and intorducing the same angle into the "bridge to abutment interface". At this point, all I need to do is hollow out the 3D model and prepare it for the 3D printer. The first prototype should be done by tomorrow, at which point I'll see if I need to make any adjustments.
Just a quick update - the bridge abutments have finished printing. Total time to print was about 12 hours (about 6 hours for each side, had to print them separately). We can see how the models were hollowed out to reduce the amount of resin waste (the walls are about 1.5mm to 2mm thick). I should be installing them soon, but for now, I'm trying to learn a new technique - I want the abutments for the bridge in the background to be stone. Fusion 360 isn't really good for that as far as I can tell, therefore after I'm done building the basic abutment model in that software, I want to bring it into Blender, and apply a displacement map to the surface to give it the stone texture. I just don't know how yet. So it's a deep dive into learning Blender!
Nice work on the abutments! I started making some wall sections that could be put together in different combinations. The right side one was the first I printed and I did it laying flat with the blocks printed facing up. The printed blocks had a rough texture to them from the print. I then filed the roughness down and feel that those blocks look more like stone (not as evident from the photo as seeing it in person). I then started printing the walls in a vertical position and the blocks are a lot smoother and look more man-made than the first print. I'll probably print them in one position or the other depending on the look I'm after. I used the 'Pattern' function in Fusion 360 to repeat the pattern over the whole wall. Once you have one or two blocks done you can repeat them over the whole surface. I might try to make a few blocks that are more 'cut stone' looking and see if that works. Keep us posted on Blender. I'm interested. Sumner
Those wall sections are looking good! I've used the pattern tool in Fusion 360 to replicate rivets and boards, but in this case, I want the result to be a lot more irregular than can be done with the pattern tool. I've already had good success, where I was testing on the model of the abutment I made up in the previous post - it wasn't perfect, but it proved that it was possible! I'll see if I can get a quick screenshot to show what it looks like.
Here's just a quick and dirty try in Blender... I won't be using this, but it's just to show what you can create with a model built in Fusion 360 and surface textured in Blender. Now I need to figure out how to blend in the tops to the sides, and do this on another abutment model made specifically for the next bridge! Also worth noting that not one brick is the same in this particular model since the UV mapping place every polygon right on the one displacement map with no repetition. However, for this particular model, the bricks are much too large. But by finding the right free displacement map of a stone texture and mapping it correctly to the model, it should make for a very nice model that should print beautifully on the resin printer!
That looks great. I tried to make a wall with 8" X 16" blocks similar to cinder or concrete blocks but with the non-resin printer it just gets to be too small to have the detail and keep the mortar joints looking somewhat correct. I'm going to have to stick with 12" X 24" probably. I'm sure that trying to also have them sculptured with a non-resin printer probably isn't going to work either. I'll still look at the process thought to use on some larger cut stone walls. Here is a link I found to some bridge abutments with fairly large cut stone... http://eerie-indiana.blogspot.com/2013/09/abandoned-bridges-on-river-road.html Maybe I'm in luck . Thanks for posting this. Sumner
Sumner, this is the YouTube video that got me onto the right track on how to apply displacement map textures onto objects. It was made with an older version of blender with a different interface, but still, the technique is there!
Well, this took a lot of time. Well, most of that time of learning Blender, but next one should be faster! Now the BIG test.. will it print and what details will still be visible after the print?
If that prints out even close to how it looks in the drawing, that will be a fantastic abutment. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.
Well, I knew it could not print exactly the same. The 3D model file is over 300MB and 6.9 million triangles. There's too much fine detail for even a resin printer, but I sent the file over the slicer as-is anyway. I figured it would be a nice test to see how well the file printed on the Photon... I think the printer did ok We can see the repetition of the texture, but only if you look real close. With the bridge in place it's a lot less apparent. Painting will reduce that even further by having slightly different coloured stones. So, seeing as this one was a success, I almost made the mistake of printing a second identical abutment! But I instead, I took 15 minutes to load up the file in Blender and shifted the displacement textures to create a second variant to the stonework. It's currently printing and will be done in about two hours. The stones will look different because I'm using a different area of the texture. So I'm pretty happy how this turned out. So now, I'm debating. Do I go back and reprint the concrete abutments I posted back in post #182?? I still want them to be concrete, but I wonder if I should add a nicer concrete texture to the front faces. It would possibly give the abutments more character! And what about the abutments on the Truss bridge I posted back in post #172??? Since printing the larger concrete abutments and now the stone abutments, those dinky little things I printed as my first try seem, well, dinky The Truss bridge is front and centre on the layout, I feel it needs much nicer substantial abutments (i.e. wings), and cut stone to give them character! Of course, those are also the ones I've already installed and set into sculptamold. Hmmmm.
How “scale” would you be able to get a concrete texture? Even in real life, poured concrete has pretty fine grain. Obviously the software and the printer are both pretty powerful, but would any texture gains just be filled in with paint? There are also textured paints you could try. Testors has their CreateFX line of rattle can paint. That could give you some texture without having to re-print, although it might be a little out of scale. If you wanted to change the truss abutment to stone, you could, but in my opinion, painting and weathering would look just as well as a re-print (at least for concrete). But I have no shame in being proven wrong
I don't know! I suppose just weathering with paint could give a really good indication of the horizontal lines that appear in a lot of the poured concrete bridges I've seen through google. However, I do know that painting with the airbrush will barely hide any of the details. I did texture one the abutments... Will it show up in the print? Only one way to find out for sure Since both abutments are different sizes (heights) for this particular bridge, I'll try this one first to see if I bother spending the time texturing and printing the second. Maybe then I'll decide to just stay with the original prints. The cost in resin is estimated at $1.91 (Canadian ), so won't cost much to give it a try. As for the Truss bridge, I'd want to change it to a cut-stone bridge, and have it extend back instead of being flat. I'm not in a hurry, so I'll just modify the 3D design and see if looks any better. Edit: quick question.. how thick is a pour layer (distance between pour lines)? Very difficult to judge in pictures.
I think the printer did ok ============================================================ I think it did way better than ok. That is great looking!! Do you have a thingiverse.com account? If not have you thought about posting the print file there for the abutment? I'd love to try printing it and seeing what an Ender 3 can do with it. I'm sure not as well as the resin printer but still it would be good to see, Sumner
It depends. Generally cold joints between layers are bad, so most are done in one continuous pour. The layers you see are probably imprints from the material the form is made out of (wood planks, etc.), rather than than the actual concrete layers. If a layer begins to set before another is added on top, they will not adhere as one solid block of concrete and are prone to cracking along the joint. That is why it seems like buildings go up so fast. Large projects have a constant supply of concrete mixer trucks because they can’t stop pouring. Any structural engineers can correct me on that. Some concrete features have expansion lines like sidewalks, but for a small vertical abutment, I doubt it would have any.
I finally realized this earlier today when I was trying to find the right size. In the end, I did adjust the size to about 16-18 scale inches per "board". It's currently printing, I'm curious to what it will look like tomorrow. I've seen pictures of really rough concrete abutments, down to very smooth abutments with barely any visible lines. I suppose it depends on how long ago it was built. I do have an account, but I've never posted anything. In this case though, I took the displacement maps on various "free" and public domain websites for textures. I'll have to review the terms and conditions on those websites before posting the model. The file is also 335 woo woo woo. I'm also curious as how it would look like on an FDM printer.
The stone abutment looks like it turned out great. Your design skill paid off big time and the printer came through for you. On all your other abutments, I thought they were all good but if you want something different, I say go for it.
Here's what the "concrete" texture look like on the abutment, side-by-side with the previous print. Do note that I did not yet sand down the front face of the "smooth" abutment - it is still showing the print lines. In the end, it really comes down to whether I want to paint the texture on a smooth face and make a very modern smooth abutment, or a rougher/old abutment. I honestly don't know yet!
When you say that you did not sand down the smooth one yet, does that mean the textured one is sanded? Why does one look perfect and the other one have visible extrusion lines?
Neither are sanded - the textured surface is simply hiding the layer lines.. I tried taking a really closeup picture with the cellphone, we can see the layer lines are following the contour of the texture detail. On both models, the thickness of a layer line is only 47 microns (or 0.00185039"). Now I'm off to print the second abutment and learn how to paint and weather concrete
