Trying to get dimensions from a .stl file

[remigi]

Hi All,

I am not sure if people have heard of Bird Buddy but it is basically a bird house with a camera. I got one for my grandparents and would like to create a perch for the front; however, without going over to their house to measure the dimensions between the screws. I found a 3D .stl file online that has the exact dimensions, does anyone know how I can convert or somehow import this into Glowforge to engrave it onto acrylic?

Thank you
bird-buddy-perch-and-fences-merged20230507-64419-vonc36.zip (6.9 MB)

[ekla]

If you don’t use any 3D software already, you can upload the STL to Sketchfab or an online STL viewer like this one to take very basic measurements.

Neither will convert the file into a 2D that you’d need to directly import into GF tho.

[evansd2]

Not exactly the answer to your main question but birdbuddy has come up before:

Nest Cam Footage

I discovered a wren nest in a box of junk in our garage yesterday, and was able to slip in a motion-activated camera while the parents were away. Here’s a compilation of the footage from day one, for anyone else who enjoys such things: [Carolina Wrens Nesting in Our Garage]

Nonlaser things that I think GFers will find interesting

Bird Buddy has finally shipped their product 2 years after their Kickstarter. It’s a video bird feeder that sends you digital postcards from the birds that visit your feeder, with AI identification of the species, and pictures and video. They remind me very much of Glowforge in the early days. Really cool product idea (that a bunch of companies tried to clone before they could ship) that they seemingly took forever to deliver on, but a truly delightful new user experience that made up for it, …

[eflyguy]

The perch appears to be 67.06x136.70x6.00mm.

The sides appear to be 149.68x80mm. The larger width in this view is due to it including the two screws.

You could save these images and import into your favorite 2D vector design app, trace the outline then scale as appropriate.

Here’s a crude version. Note one corner of the sides is more squared off than the others.

[remigi]

Thank you! So if I engrave this in acrylic, how far apart would the screw holes need to be (to the centre of the hole i guess)?

[bwente]

Tinkercad can get you part way there. It can export as a SVG.

[eflyguy]

The scale of the Tinkercad version is completely different to what I brought in to Lychee or XYZPrint.

You’re probably going to need to measure the bird house.

[pubultrastar]

The main piece exported from fusion 360 is:

2.6403 in x 5.3819 in