Easiest way to get from physical object to CAD/CAM file

Factual Questions
1

I made a small clay sculpture. I would like to get this design into a CAD file for upload to a 3D printing company such as Shapeways.com, which supports the following file types: DAE, OBJ, STL, X3D, X3DB, X3DV, WRL.

I tried using some CAD software to make it from scratch, but I lacked the skills. Ideally, it would be cool if I could take a series of photos of it and have some software analyze and stitch it together into a 3D model, sort of like Microsoft Photosynth does. That’s probably a lot to ask, though.

2

Autodesk have this:
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

I have been meaning to try it out properly. My first attempt failed miserably, but I did it quickly and didn’t properly follow the instructions. Maybe worth a try.
ETA: I believe this will output a standard AutoCAD DWG file. AutoCAD itself will export a STL file.

3

before a person tries this they should make sure they meet the system requirements.

http://www.123dapp.com/catch

4

:confused:They don’t seem particularly demanding to me. The whole point of this is that the donkey-work is carried out on Autodesk’s own servers, not your PC.

5

never mind

6

Looks good, thanks! I’ll check it out.

7

The specific model of CPU required seems really odd.

8

Well, I tried it, and although the results aren’t perfect, it’s a good start! Thanks again Dave.B!