Solid 3D Objects from SketchUp.
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Hi guys, I'm new here so don't kick my a*s if I'm posting in the wrong section.
I've been developing a product for the past few days and I'm going to model it on a 3D Printer. However, SketchUp produces hollow drawings and if I was to produce this on a 3D printer, it would most proably fall apart due to it being hollow.
I was wondering if there is any setting at all that allows me to change weather or not SketchUp uses a hollow setting or an entirely solid object setting.
Any help would be appreciated!
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SketchUp is a surface modeller. It's the wrong tool if you need real solids. That said, there's a lot of 3D printing being down from SketchUp models and they don't fall apart. Do some searching on the forums for 3D printing. I think you'll find plenty of examples of SketchUp being used for that.
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The printer should allow you to dictate the interior.
From having it completely made of plastic (solid) to having the innards honeycombed in various fashions
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Are there 3d printers that read .skp format now? Or will he still have to export to .stl?
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@chris fullmer said:
Are there 3d printers that read .skp format now? Or will he still have to export to .stl?
I don't know of any printers that directly deal with .skp but I do know iMaterialise can accept .skp format and convert.
My own printer requires .stl but when I go to print it then asks 'How thick do you want the walls?' 'what kind of construction would you like internally?' or' Will it be solid?'
At this stage I turn it off as talking printers are annoying.
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I had a similar problem and TIG wrote the honeycomber plugin as an answer, perhaps it will help you too?
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You normally export to STL - then the 3d printer. And as long as you model the mesh as a solid in SU (it says Solid when you select the group/component in Entity Info) you should be good. You just need to make sure that all edges in the mesh are connected to two faces. Any internal faces needs to be removed.
I've printed stuff from SketchUp models. Example:
https://plus.google.com/photos/103450081381233788032/albums/5754245713469640065
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We have a Makerbot and several high end 3D printers at work and have no issue with printing exported STL files from SU. In the case of the Makerbot the software gives you plenty of choices of how you want to print the part as do our high end systems.
You can download the Makerbot software for free to check out the features.
Karl
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Hi guys sorry for the late response, had some network problems.
We're using a ZPrinter 250 which uses an application called ZPrint to process the Models. We've been using .stl's to import drawings but that was importing them from Solidworks which I don't have a license for.
I found a plugin that allowed me to convert the .skp file to .stl and then import it into ZPrint which I will try out tomorrow if I have time. It's a possibility that ZPrint will alow me to dictate the interior of the model because previous models where developed entirely solid, and to save materials they where created with small Columns automatically (They where originally designed entirely hollow).
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Almost all 3D printing machines use STL as their input files. The software that coverts the STL and drives the machines (mostly by G-code) is almost always proprietary and is supplied by the machine vendor.
The meshes of complex STL files often do have flaws which need to be repaired, for this there is netfabb which is free for the basic program.
hth,
Norbert
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