Want to design your own 3D printed heart-shaped pendant in under an hour?
We did! You might have heard about JWEEL, a free browser-based jewelry design software. It has a built-in feature that lets you 3D print your own necklaces, charms, and rings in gold, silver, brass, and other materials— without making you check your model for printing flaws. It does that for you, so it’s a great way to quickly create custom jewelry designs.
We asked an employee who never designed jewelry before to create a heart-shaped pendant using JWEEL. Read on to see how they did it, and how you can, too!
But first, grab a clickwheel mouse and log in to JWEEL!
JWEEL is very easy to use with a clickwheel mouse. Go get one. We’ll wait.
Here are the basic keystrokes for JWEEL:
Zoom: Hold down Z and roll the click wheel
Rotate view: Hold down right click and move your mouse.
DELETE: First press D, and then Left click. Do not click both at the same time.
Make a new “limb” and/or “sphere:” Double click on a sphere. Another ball will appear for you to drag around. It is a separate ball from the ball you clicked.
Move “balls” or “limbs” around: Click a ball. Hold down the left mouse button and drag your mouse at the same time.
Make a “ball” larger or smaller: Click a ball and roll the click wheel back and forth. Now, check out this visual work flow:
1. The Default Screen
This is how it looks when you start a project. There is a basic three-“limb” teardrop design.
2. Select a sphere by clicking on it.
Note that we have “Symmetries” turned on. You can turn it off or change its direction via the “Symmetries” menu section on the middle-left side of the screen… right below “save.”
3. Delete the entire “limb” it by clicking your DELETE key. Do the same for the other one.
4. Select bottom sphere and double click. Select the new ball that appears, and drag it up and away from the center.
5. Join the balls together at the top, to form a heart.
JWEEL lets you intersect and combine parts by dragging and dropping them around. No need to calculate wall thickness or worry about manifold edges…
6. Create a new limb.
To make a “sphere” or “limb,” double click on an existing sphere. Another ball will appear for you to drag around. It is a separate ball from the ball you clicked. Click down on the new sphere you generated, hold down your mouse drag the sphere until you see it stretch into a limb. Drag the limb through the heart.
7. Use Your New Knowledge to Create an Arrow Shape That You Like.
Click on the spheres and keep creating new limbs and dragging around balls until you get the shape you want! Our secret volunteer had so much fun with this part that they spent 30 minutes designing this complex, geometric cube-like shape for the arrow base!
8. Click “View My Pendant.”
The final render can be embedded on websites, Facebook, and social media for free.
Now you can either save your design on the free server, or send it off to the 3D printer. We chose to print it our design:
We chose to print our design in brass, a budget-friendly material. Would you guess pendant was made by someone who never designed jewelry before?
That’s all there is to it! Now Check out some of the beautiful pendant designs in JWEEL’s community user designs gallery, such as this one by Angelola:
