How can I have an imprint made?
Do you offer to apply individual prints or engravings to your products?
And want to make this configurable in K3? - No problem!
How do the 3D models need to be prepared for this?
The K3 print designer only manipulates the material of a model on a technical level. Your 3D modeler must therefore provide the model part to be printed with a specific material. You must use this material in the following
Creating a print
- Open the configurator editor.
- If you have not already done so, create the first configuration step by clicking on Loading....
- Now click on Loading.... This creates a characteristic. The left sidebar opens.
- First give the new feature the name that you want your customer to see.
- You can now select the Display of the new feature. For an imprint, select Loading..., as your customer must upload an image for the imprint.
- Click on Loading....
- Here you can make some settings:
- Hide original texture when printing: Should the material specified by the modeler be retained when printing takes place?
- Allowed image formats: Transparent PNGs often produce the better result, but JPGs are used on the IPHone for mobile applications.
- Maximum image size
- Click on Loading.... The new feature appears immediately in the configurator.
- Next, you can specify which actions this selection should perform.
- Check the box next to Imprint image and select the material that has been prepared for the imprint.
- You can also specify a maximum size here - separately for desktop and mobile devices. The background to this is that printing is memory-intensive. If your model provides for a large print area, it may be that you should limit the size here so that the configurator also works on weaker devices. If you set smaller sizes, the print in the 3D area will be blurred. However, the customer's image will be saved in full resolution in the configuration.
- Click on Loading....
Manual rule creation
As always, the rule for printing can also be created manually. To do this, activate the Print images on surfaces option in the rule editor and select the surface, to be printed on.
In this case, the rule must also contain the image feature in which the image is to be uploaded. Otherwise the print will work, but you will not see the sliders for the image position.
Printing on complex objects
A layer does not necessarily have to be printed, more complex surfaces can also be printed. However, the following principle also applies here: The existing texture must already have been placed appropriately over the surfaces.
The UV mapping for this mesh is crucial and must have been carried out correctly. It often helps to place an example texture with print over the entire object in the 3D modeling tool.
Specifying an image
It can be helpful to show the customer the printing option by inserting a placeholder image. The procedure starts with the print rule:
- Open the editor of the print feature and switch to the "Rules" tab
- Click on the linked rule
- Here you can see: If the feature is filled, the image is printed.
- We will specify here that a different image should be printed if the feature is not filled.
- To do this, create another image characteristic and give it a standard image.
- Hide the new feature.
- Switch back to the rule and specify in a new line for the case that the print characteristic is not animated, specify in a new line that the new characteristic is to be printed.
Done!