White House Ornament

An ornament for the White House 3D printed ornament contest. Using some basic shapes and texturing, you could have a 3D printed ornament of the Commander in Chief watching over you on your tree, and hopefully in his tree as well!

Step 1: Basic Shapes.

I used KeyCreator to make my basic shapes, but you could use almost any software. The main components are a sphere for the bulb, and a torus for the loop at the top so you can add an ornament hook. Now you have all you need to make your ornament. I did a few extra steps to mine. Like cut the ball in half, shelled it to 3mm, added a small hole to the front, and added a security camera in the back.

Step 2: Texture

Now you just need to texture your bulb. You can do this with many different software, but I used Blender. You can use complex texturing techniques, but when it's on the tree you can only see one half the bulb, so I'll tell you how to texture half of it. So open your file in Blender. Right click the bulb and switch to edit mode. View the bulb from the front (not necessarily front view, which ever view shows your bulb from what you see as the front). Type U and click Project from view (bounds). Switch your view to UV Image editor. You'll see a wireframe circle of your bulb. Click Image>Open Image. Select the image you want for your bulb. Switch back to 3D view, and switch back to object mode. Now export your bulb and loop as an x3D file. Zip your x3D file, and the texture file together. Upload your file to a 3D printing service like Shapeways, and you'll be ready to print your full color bulb in Full Color Sandstone, or any other full color material!

Step 3: Order Mine!

If you'd like to order my ornament today, here's the link http://shpws.me/wEU5