Unusual Object To Print - Tech Query

[Marm]

I have to disagree on that CA.

BUT... it's all I've used for 3d printing so far. I know it's not the best for it, but I do ok with it. I've had to learn how to make it work for printing. Maybe when I move onto another program I'll realize what you mean, but I see nothing "wrong" with it, 3d printing just isn't it's forte. I can whip up something really quickly in SU, convert it and print quickly now. Just gotta think like a 3d printer from the get go. Converting old designs to be printed..... that's another story.

[jlmccuan]

Why not print each wall and roof section flat and glue together post print?

[Marm]

Why not print each wall and roof section flat and glue together post print?

Kind of defeats the purpose of a 3d printer then IMO.

[Wolfie]

The other problem I see is the lower rail caps (where the studs base onto). Its completely horizontal. A support fill will be needed there. It can be removed later after the print is done though. And what about the top of the windows, thats horizontal as well.

[jlmccuan]

Kind of defeats the purpose of a 3d printer then IMO.

Well, you build houses that way and they are certainly 3d. The walls would still be constructed of 3d printed framing. And printing that way would give the best quality end product. Just because you might be able to print something in one pass oriented in it's final direction doesn't mean you've delivered the best product you can.

[curious aardvark]

I guess if you can get sketchup to do solids and you can make it work (I never could, none of the tutorials worked) then it should be good.

I'd still like to try and print it. :-)

[Marm]

There are a couple pitfalls you have to look out for.

One is hidden interior geometry. If you end up with lines inside a solid, it will confuse a slicer (at least mine). Apparently, a single line in SU has enough thickness that a slicer is trying to treat it like a cylinder of the minimal diameter. Imagine connecting the centers of opposite faces of a cube with a line. The SU and the slicer try to reconcile this as a solid object, that is part of the manifold object. Same with buried faces. If you end up with two intersecting faces, but the intersection endpoints aren't connected by a line, then it will create one or more internal faces that again confuse the slicer. By simply drawing a line between the intersecting end points, and then deleting the resulting isolated internal faces, you will avoid this problem.

Another is issue is masked faces. Imagine making a cube, then making a bigger cube, then you take the smaller cube and move it share a corner and a plane. The two faces that share that plane are causing an issue with the slicer. SU still treats each cube as a solid object, with all outside faces, but they have 0 seperation. The slicer tries to do the same, but with overlapping faces like this, it's the equivalent of dividing by zero. The solution is far easier than interior faces/lines, as you just have to delete the overlapping faces, leaving the interior space contiguous.

Redundant lines don't seem to be as much of an issue, but I still like to remove them. If you have the same scenario as above, but with cubes of the same size, you'll be left with a square of lines that wrap around the midpoint of the new polyhedron. They don't seem to do anything, nor confuse the slicer, but I still take them out for a cleaner appearance.