Exporting as a solid object for 3D printing?
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I need to create a model to be exported to a 3D printer for a physical model consisting of numerous tiles.
The 'tiles' that shall be printed obviously need a thickness, so I have offset my terrain and 'blocked off' the sides, so it looks like a solid tile with a thickness to be printed. As Sketchup uses surfaces, I have been told that this will not be read as a solid and result in problems and cannot be printed.
Is there a way, or a plugin/export method of turning this into a solid mass as in programs such as 3D Max ect?
I would like to keep this within Sketchup as much as possible.
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Hi,
It depends of which file format the 3D printer takes as input, IMHO. In case it requires a STL format you could use su2stl: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/plugin_details.php?id=429
Hope this helps, -
If you look at the advertisements at the bottom of the page, you'll often see companies advert'n 3DPrint plugins and services.
http://www.cadspan.com/tools
Has a free and pro plugin.There are others... check them them out.
I am not affiliated with any of these companies.
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Cheers guys,
I will wai tot hear back from the 3D printer guys. Was just wondering if there was a known way of makign a solid and not just a 'surface' based model.
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Hi,
@unknownuser said:
Was just wondering if there was a known way of makign a solid and not just a 'surface' based model
The 3D printing file formats (most of them AFAIK) are not based on solid(s) description(s). The STL format for instance (even if it starts with "solid" and ends with "endsolid" keywords) is just a watertight mesh of triangles.
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