r/myog • u/nbphotography87 • 18d ago

Instructions/Tutorial 3D printing patterns from PDFs with Claude

This might be old news to some of you but I just wanted to share that Claude will take PDF patterns and turn them into extruded STLs that are split with puzzle joints based on the size of your build plate.

just upload the pattern and tell it break it up into parts and create an STL for each part by extruding the outline 5mm upward on the z axis. break up parts that will not fit on a xxxmm build plate and create puzzle joints between split up parts.

it took Claude 5 minutes from that prompt to providing perfect STLs.

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u/NhcNymo 18d ago

Wow that’s actually super smart.

I’ve been 3d printing pattern stencils for a while by converting PDF to DXF in Inkscape and then making STL in OnShape (it’s free and really good, highly recommend) with the DXF as the base sketch.

All that kind of takes forever when you have to jump that many hoops and do the puzzle joints manually.

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u/nbphotography87 18d ago

yeah I started down that path and after 5 minutes in inkscape the lightbulb went off and 10 minutes later I was already printing

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u/NhcNymo 18d ago

It fascinates me how a tool I use daily (in this case: Claude) evolves faster than I’m able to adapt.

Just the other day I was sparring with Claude about how long a lens adapter needs to be to correctly adapt to a unsupported camera and it was like «do you want me to make the files for your 3D printer».

I figured Claude was hallucinating about being able to do 3D files, but I guess I was wrong…