Closed polysurface make it printable

Hello,

I use grasshopper to make my model and turn into rhino is closed poly-surface. How can i make it printable?

Thanks,

Watson

.gh and .3m attached file

Attachments:

Watson circle try printing.3dm, 1.2 MB
Watson start overJC.gh, 16 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 1, 2017 at 6:36am

I haven't tried 3D printing, but looking at a cross section of your model (clipping plane in Rhino), the internal structure isn't as "clean" as I would expect?

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 1, 2017 at 6:48am

Here is the cross section of one side. Ideally, there would be no crossed lines, right?

Permalink Reply by Watson on November 1, 2017 at 7:27am

This is the model that i output from my grasshopper.

Just not sure if it can be printing or not as it's closed polysurface and how to change to solid to print?

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on November 1, 2017 at 7:36am

Most 3d printers can work through this. It's just not ideal because it will increase print time and material (effectively increasing your cost). I've printed far worse models with success. One thing you might want to do is bring it into a software like meshlab - it can prepare your object for printing and resolve a lot of issues.

Also, you might want to upload it to shapeways, their uploader tells you what issues you may encounter and can even perform some automatic fixes. Click upload and create a free account. https://www.shapeways.com/create

Permalink Reply by Birk Binnard on November 1, 2017 at 9:08am

This is going to be a difficult model to print if you are planning on using a standard FDM type of printer. The reason is it will require a lot of internal and external supports since it has very large unsupported areas. Here is a cross section view of the model I sliced with the Craftware slicer - it slices the 3DM model with no problems in just a few seconds:

If this could be printed in a zero-gravity environment it would print just fine. Unfortunately most of us do not have access to such a situation, and the model really does not lend itself to accommodating internal and external supports. Plus, even if you did put these in place there would be so many that after removing them the part would not look very nice.

An option to 3D print would be to use a SLA printer. These are expensive and messy, but they are good for printing parts like this because they pull the printed object out of a fluid bath, thus essentially providing a zero-G printing environment that eliminates the need for supports.

Keep in mind that the key to making any 3D print is the need to successfully run your model through a slicing program. To do that you export the baked Rhino object as an STL file and then use that as input to the slicer program. As long as your GH objects are closed Breps or meshes you can be pretty sure they will slice OK after exporting as STL from Rhino. There is an inherent problem with STL files having to do with "overlapping shells", but that is a totally different issue.

Permalink Reply by Watson on November 2, 2017 at 7:42pm

So i shared on my grasshopper file that the end it came out closed polysurface how can i make it to solid? Thanks

Attachments:

Watson start overJC.gh, 16 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 3, 2017 at 8:04am

Permalink Reply by Watson on November 3, 2017 at 8:17pm

This is the plug-in that the data is from the microphone.

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 3, 2017 at 8:22pm

How many people do you expect to install that plugin just to look at your model? Can you internalize the data captured through the plugin so the rest of us can see it?

Permalink Reply by Watson on November 4, 2017 at 5:38am

It's a large data that I put on a screenshot. I don't know how to set this num of data. Sorry about it:(

Attachments:

23224449_1384518521659643_2002544713_o.png, 380 KB
23313217_1384518514992977_1966798531_o.png, 92 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 4, 2017 at 5:46am

Connect the output of the blue group, from the plugin, to a 'Num' param ('Params | Primitive | Number'). Then right-click on the 'Num' and choose "Internalize data". That will disconnect it from the blue group ('A X B') and keep a copy of the data in the 'Num' param when you save the file. That allows others to see the data without having the plugin.

Permalink Reply by Watson on November 4, 2017 at 8:23pm

Cool. So how can i make out the final outcome be solid and printable?

Thanks