Hi, Dexter
At the beginning of the pandemic I had to transition my mineralogy course to on-line delivery but decided to supply the students with hands on mineral samples and crystal models. The cheapest way to crystal models is to cut out paper shapes and glue them together but it usually ends in a mess and not everyone is dextrous enough to do a good job. 3D Printing the shapes seemed to be the obvious way to go, but a first run-through by our own university 3D printing facility proved disappointing (the edges weren’t sharp enough, there were irregularities in the surfaces and some of the models were way too small and expensive with ca. $20 per model). I finally got a grant from the department to contract this out and was very happy with https://www.shapeways.com/shops/smorf https://www.shapeways.com/shops/smorf who produced solid, crisp white models and delivered them within a few weeks (see attached). If you want to go it alone you can download stl files from https://www.thingiverse.com https://www.thingiverse.com/.

Ingrid Kjarsgaard
Ottawa, Canada

Hi,

That was a subject of the research of Prof. Peter Moeck at Portland State University. We were looking at the positive impact on education with availability of 3D models. You can generate the print files for crystal structures in the crystallography open database (COD) on his website:

https://nanocrystallography.research.pdx.edu/databases/

The files can be in STL, X3D, or VRML. Prof. Werner Kaminsky at the University of Washington created a conversion for CIF files to VRML (CIF2VRML) which you can find on the link above.

Good luck!
Jennifer

We transitioned to 3D printed models at the beginning of the pandemic, to
send home a set with each student. I printed a selection of the ones found
on this site:

https://crystalmodels3d.wordpress.com/home/

I imported the models into tinkercad.com to add identifiers to each model.
I should make those available, but I would feel the need to clean them up a
bit then, and I don't have the time to do that right now.

The link takes you to a site, with a good selection of crystal models, that
redirects to thingiverse for downloading. I'd be hesitant to go searching
through thingiverse itself.

The models can be scaled to whatever size your 3D printer print volume is,
but the larger it is, the longer it will take. I would suggest an infill of
about 10-15%, depending on how large you go.

I've been 3D printing for about 5 years now. If you, or your IT, have any
questions, I'd be happy to help.

On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 9:43 AM Jennifer Stone-Sundberg via MSA-talk <
msa-talk@minlists.org> wrote:

--
Ben Andersen
Instructional Support Technician
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
College of Science and Mathematics
California State University, Fresno
Direct: 559.278.2975 <(559)%20278-2975>

Hi all,

During the first year of the pandemic, I know several groups created sets
of 3D printable crystal models. A few I made can be accessed here:
https://ecl.earthchem.org/view.php?id=1478 (along with a catalogue of
random 2D sections to illustrate to mineralogy students that thin sections
can display a large variety). As Jinny said, SHAPE - by Eric Dowty - is a
vastly superior solution, in that one can save any custom crystal model
into .stl format [but it's not free...very worth it if you're into
mineral forms].

While I will always prefer the feel of the wood models, 3D printing
crystals is a lot of fun and students find it interesting.

Best,

Tom

On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 6:43 AM Jennifer Stone-Sundberg via MSA-talk <
msa-talk@minlists.org> wrote:

--
Thomas Shea
Assistant Professor
Volcanology-Geochemistry-Petrology
Dept. of Earth Sciences
University of Hawaii at Manoa
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/earthsciences/FACULTY/tshea/index.html
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/FACULTY/tshea/index.html

I will also add that over the past 2 years, I have really been happy to be able to send home bags of 3D printed crystal structures (as well as a 3D ternary print) with students to help support learning beyond the classroom.  These 3D printed versions were cheaper than the wooden Krantz blocks (though yes…less warm to the touch) and if one got lost, it was ok.

When every student has their own copy of a crystal form, it also made a huge difference for tests since they no longer had to wait for a test sample to pass to them during the exam time.  Studying in groups in dorms or even in zoom land was easier when everyone has their set of crystals…they could all look at sample together, make videos of themselves drawing a stereonet for a block, etc.

There is a really nice sense of “ownership” that I saw in students when they got to caretake for a bag of 16 or so 3D printed crystals.  I saw more students just playing with them….rotating them on their fingertips…which helps grow comfort with these blocks with curious shapes.  I figured if a student flipped around a 6/m 2/m 2/m block lots as a fidget device while studying, they actually might have a sense of what rotation feels like and that is a win!

-Dori

—————————————
Dr. Dori Farthing
SUNY Geneseo
Chair and Assoc. professor
Dept. of Geological Sciences