Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. An adult dragonfly's compound eyes have nearly 24,000 ommatidia each.įossils of very large dragonfly ancestors in the Protodonata are found from 325 million years ago (Mya) in Upper Carboniferous rocks these had wingspans up to about 750 mm (30 in). Many dragonflies have brilliant iridescent or metallic colours produced by structural coloration, making them conspicuous in flight. Dragonflies are agile fliers, while damselflies have a weaker, fluttery flight. Dragonflies can be mistaken for the related group, damselflies (Zygoptera), which are similar in structure, though usually lighter in build however, the wings of most dragonflies are held flat and away from the body, while damselflies hold the wings folded at rest, along or above the abdomen. Adult dragonflies are characterized by large, multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. They weren't too bad once the angles were neat.A dragonfly is an insect belonging to the order Odonata, infraorder Anisoptera (from Greek anisos, 'unequal' and pteron, 'wing', because the hindwing is broader than the forewing). The Legs are 2.5mm circles perpendicular (top and right plane respectively) with connecting 3D sketches, first time I've used these for a physical print / model. Wings were boss extrudes with extruded spline cuts, mirrored in x. I had to superglue a spring in as I snapped one off during de-support, sad face.įor the body, I created a loft with two open profiles and 5 open loop guide curves, this gave me 1/4 of the model, mirrored in x and y & offset to create 3 more lofts which were then merged, gaps all over the place, but that's how I wanted my dragon fly's body to look with the spikes at the end, this gave rise to all the errors and knit surface just wan't happening.

I ran this at 60mm/s, with a 'tweak' at 15mm to slow the print speed right down (40-50%)

One-piece print with supports touching the base, the legs are delicate,

Printed really well despite there being way too many errors in the stl file, but it printed fine at 100% scale. Saw a few Dragon fly's on here but none really to my liking as I had to get mine out fast, for a mothers day present.

Dragonfly 3d model stl free download