Creating a valid stl from multiple intersecting volumes

Hi everybody

What is the best solution for adapting your complex models to be 3D printed? In order to export to .stl and print, I need to turn everything to one single closed surface or polysurface.

Imagine I've generated a model which contains a lot of intersecting volumes. Rhino commands such as CreateSolid fail due to high number of intersections. Any suggestions/sloutions..?

Attachments:

cd1b277ea6.jpg, 53 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nik Willmore on April 28, 2016 at 9:13pm

Yeah, McNeel doesn't give a shit whatsoever about you, which is why I keep campaigning for Autodesk to buy McNeel, so to add seriously robust algorithms inside.

Try Meshmixer by Autodesk, and also try 3D-Coat. It will only take you six months to learn each one, so in a year, you will have perfectly good Booleans. In that time, as you skirt homelessness, your character will be built up.

Or so they say.

Post a model.

Permalink Reply by Anders Holden Deleuran on April 29, 2016 at 1:28am

I'm campaigning for you to quit trolling or GTFO #stopwillmorenow #feelthemcneel

Permalink Reply by Birk Binnard on April 30, 2016 at 2:50pm

If you are running Windows 8 or 10 try loading your STL files into 3D Builder. It will identify any erros are try to fix them. I uses the NetFabb algorithms and I have never had a problem printing one of it's corrected files.

Also, remember that you really should not have any naked edges in your STL file. Rhino's Naked Edge command shows them quite well, but fixing them is not always easy. In general all your geometry should have some thickness that exceeds your printer's extrusion width and/or layer height - otherwise your slicer won't see the geometry.

If all your geometry has a thickness with edges made from precisely matching curves you should not have any naked edges and should have no problems printing.

RSS