Proper procedure to 3d printing

[Mr. Xavier Arosemena 0]

Hello guys,

 

I want to 3d print a part of my project, with an online service such as shapeways or 3dhub. Whats the correct way to do that?

 

I just export the BRep to a .stl file? Or should I first "translate" the BRep to a solid or something?

 

My closed BRep will be "understood" as a solid? (As I hope). Or it will print as walls with an empty filling?

 

Cheers!

 

Xavier

[Jörg 29]

Hi Xavier,

 

Exporting the brep as STL should be fine. You can import again your STL into CAESES to check whether everything is ok.

 

Cheers

Joerg

[Mr. Xavier Arosemena 0]

Thanks Joerg!

[Mr. Bram1 Kerkhofs1 0]

Xavier

 

Stl does the trick as Joerg mentioned.

Personally I already 3D printed some stuff with Caeses.

I have the experience that it is way easier to control the tesselation with breps than with a solid a tesselation object. So you can control the 'triangle' size in the breps. Here under are the parameters I adjust:

 

 

.setAngleToleranceInDegrees(AngleTolRough)

.setChordHeightTolerance(ToleranceRough)

.setMax3DEdgeLength(MaxEdgeRough)

 

as you can see that the part of the 3D printed model that had the above parameters could be done with rough (large) triangles. The AngleTolRough and other parameters are defined globally.

When I combine all my different parts in a brep with a boolean 'union' operation. Don't define any of the above mentioned parameters or you will overwrite them for the whole brep.

 

Load this brep as a source for a solid. Do some post processing ( e.g. delete too small triangles, etc etc). Use this solid afterwards to be exported to an stl.

 

I did some printing and this method worked nicely. I used half of the precision of the printer as a maximum value for the Max3DEdgeLength. The ChordHeightTolerance is the tolerance it can deviate from the mathematical place, I used 0.1*precision of the printer. The angelToleranceInDegrees is the maximal angle whish is allowed between two triangles, which I take as 10 degrees.

You'll see that the Max3DEgdeLength will reeeaaaally make your stl file large :).

 

Hope my reply wasn't too late :).

 

B

[Jörg 29]

Good input, Bram!