3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
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I'm not going to try to dissuade you from getting a 3D scanner, but for functional prints a pair of calipers, some radius gauges, and a profile gauge will you really far. Once you get some reps in with CAD it also won't take you long to model your designs. CAD is a great skill to learn and as you do this again and again you'll start modifying your designs to make them easier to print.
Yeah that's what I've done so far, but anything that's not made of a few simple shapes gets annoying real fast. Compound curves, tons of details, and organic shapes are more time commitment than I'm willing to spend modeling from scratch.
I wonder if it will be less annoying with a point cloud. You'll still need to model it, only with a digital reference, correct?