Prepping models for 3D printing questoins.

[leo2883]

Hello everyone. I appreciate anyone who could help me with this. Be warned, this may be a lengthy post. First off I wasn't sure where to post this. Whether here or in the 3d prining section, but seeing this has to do more with the modeling aspect of it I decided to post here.

I recently started working at a local 3D printing startup. I'm the only "modeler" and no prior experience with 3D printing. Ive looked into it a bit so i wasnt completely a noob, but the whole process was new to me. Also i dont do much modeling, i mainly tweak models made by others. So my onto my questions. Many of these "template" models are not hollowed. My boss wants to eventually have all these models hollowed. I know the process in zbrush (somewhat), and ive been shown the process in maya, but only with a simple sphere.

Now a lot of these models are very dense, have UV's because they're already textured, and posed. So using the dynamesh method on these posed models with UV's would present a huge problem. Since I might have to change the pose in the future dynamesh will meld parts together and ruin the UVs causing me to waste time having to redo UVs. On the other hand doing these very complex and dense models in maya the method i was taught would probably take less time, but still long since I've never done it before.

Another issue I was presented with was measuring the distance between the outer shell of a model and hollowed part. My boss asked me to make sure theyre a certain distance from eachother, but the only way i could do that was to use the measuring tool on a primitive in maya and move that primitive around (which takes forever) the model to measure. Im wondering if theres a simpler and more time efficient way to go about it.

Like I said i'm very new to this, and its been a very frustrating experience trying to figure this all out with no one to help me through since im the only modeler. I would love to learn easier methods so im not driven mad and would have to leave or be fired. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jfkansas]

Just let the slicing software do the Hollowing out. If you want to do it before check out Autodesk's Mesh Mixer.