Building thickness

Rudbeckia · 12 Mar 2014, 17:11

I see now what you are saying, so the bldg you attached would print on a 3d printer? Even though it is still faces not walls? Bc what you have done would be a lot faster than redrawing all the sides of the bldgs as walls

pbacot · 12 Mar 2014, 17:28

OK. As I understand, it will. I don't do 3d printing myself, but I have helped others with models to print, and it came out fine. SketchUp only has faces. However a properly made model will print when translated.

The point about the roof span should be considered you might end up adding some columns or other mass in the center to keep it from sinking in. Probably you should pushpull it thicker than I show too (roof and floor). A prototype model would help your printer tell you what is needed.

Rudbeckia · 12 Mar 2014, 18:13

thanks for the help!

kaas · 12 Mar 2014, 18:32

A quick addition to my earlier comment:

you could also just offset the floorplane and pushpull it up just below the rooflevel.
if you make a group of a closed object it will automatically turn into a solid. You can only 3d print solid objects
check the specs and material of your 3d printer. it will depend the minimall thickness of the walls and roof and if you need supporting structures for the roof.
check your units. If you want to 3d print the model at some scale, the model should be scaled accordingly.

pbacot · 12 Mar 2014, 21:36

@kaas said:

A quick addition to my earlier comment:

you could also just offset the floorplane and pushpull it up just below the rooflevel.

if you make a group of a closed object it will automatically turn into a solid. You can only 3d print solid objects

check the specs and material of your 3d printer. it will depend the minimall thickness of the walls and roof and if you need supporting structures for the roof.

check your units. If you want to 3d print the model at some scale, the model should be scaled accordingly.

No 1 is a good idea. Faster.

cotty · 13 Mar 2014, 07:03

@pbacot said:

OK. As I understand, it will.

It's depending on the printing technology. If it's powder based for example, you need escape holes for the powder inside... for some ideas of rules see here .

You need to follow the design rules for the specific printer that will be used! (wall thickness, holes, ...)

A quick way to add thickness to the walls in this case could be the JPP plugin from Fredo, and to make it into a solid component use Solidsolver from TIG...

[screenr:3mtb2nbb]YSUN[/screenr:3mtb2nbb]

pilou · 13 Mar 2014, 08:51

@Cotty
How select the faces on this video ?
Does the background external faces of the 2 "little boxes" are selected?
Have you a screenshot of the JPP toolbar regulates?

cotty · 13 Mar 2014, 09:27

Does this screenshot help?

pilou · 13 Mar 2014, 09:52

No
Some explosion!

no.skp

cotty · 13 Mar 2014, 10:16

I've got the same problem with your geomtry...

pilou · 13 Mar 2014, 11:40

I believe that your geometry works because your 2 little boxes are "penetrating" by the top inside the big one!
Mine is just "pasted" without soaking even inside is effectively dug!
So maybe Fred must improuve his JPP!

tt_su · 13 Mar 2014, 11:59

@rudbeckia said:

A 3d printer will not read just a face in SU even in the faces are closed, like a cube. It does not read the cube as a solid......at least thats what i have been told.

I've not had that problem. When you have a closed volume, in SketchUp it will say "Solid" in Entity Into then it's good to go for 3d print.

This was printed from a SketchUp model:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103450081381233788032/albums/5754245713469640065

I used iMaterialize's services.

pilou · 13 Mar 2014, 12:03

Poor pawn !

TIG · 13 Mar 2014, 13:34

The simple definition of a manifold solid - one that will successfully 3d-print when exported to a compatible file format - is a collection of 'geometry', consisting of just faces and the edges bounding those faces [within a group or a component 'container'].
Every edge must bound exactly two faces - no fewer and no more.
So that precludes faceless edges, or edges around holes, forming flaps/shelves etc with therefore one face only, or edges bounding internal partition faces where they would have three or more faces, or edges shared by two otherwise seemingly solid objects - like cubes meeting along one edge - where that edge is shared by four faces.
It also precludes nested groups/components and any other entities like text and dims.
Although construction-lines and points [aka guides] within a collection do not compromise its solidity, these are best avoided when sending on for 3d-printing etc...

arail1 · 13 Mar 2014, 14:55

You should consider downloading a demo version of Rhino and running the Shell command. I'm assuming you're just printing the outside volume of these buildings, therefore you don't need floors. Shell will do what I think you're looking for.