topic Re: Using Stencil for Text in Meshmixer Forum

Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 17:35:24 GMT

Trying to use stencil to add text. Link to video tutorial below. It says to create a png file and import to stencil. Photo of result below. The square on the left of the photo should be text. It acts like the png is not transparent, but it is saved as transparent and I can reopen it in PS and it appears transparent.

What am I doing wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt6grv2AeY

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 22:18:00 GMT

The base density of your mesh is too low to get a decent imprint of the Stencil. Use SELECT/Edit/Remesh to add more density in the target region as explained in the video.

Designing the text on a 512x512 image (you don't need transparency just a grey tone image) make the white text on black background as big as possible. A slim black frame around is enough.

In the brush's settings:

Disable Flow to get a certain Height/Depth of your stencil
Set a high Spacing value to avoid nearby drops
In its Refinement section set Refine to max and Reduce to min (or disable Refinement at all if the base density is enough)

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 16:04:19 GMT

Didn't realize it filtered inverse: white on black.

Object needed MASSIVE remesh. Was working in density mode and had to do three remeshes to see detail.

Tried to use Target Edge Length like he did in the video - set to .07. Kept getting big triangles not small. NERD ALERT! Zero is a significant digit. .07 is seen as a 7. If you want .07 you must have a zero in front! 0.07

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 16:11:25 GMT

Can you open Remesh with starting the process? I want to change setting, but when I start from the select tool dropdown it start the process and i have to wait for it to finish before I can change setting.

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 17:53:56 GMT

Dealing with absolute values (as EdgeLength) also keep the total dimensions of the object in mind. A length of 0.07 might result in a sufficient density to drop a label stencil on a 1:1 scan of a denture.

A smaller object will need a lower edge length to get the same relative density (e.g. if the denture would be in 1:2 scale you need 0.035 to get the same...)

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 18:03:55 GMT

You can't get rid of those auto calculations on the tools' start. Remesh does this startup calculation using the last set parameters (on different tools this might be different e.g. for MakeSolid). So before running the tool on a big task (a big region to remesh) enter the tool with a small region and set the desired parameters. After that computation is done Cancel the tool.

Now, the either region being selected , do Remesh again and its startup computation will use the previous settings.

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 18:15:32 GMT

Thanks for help. How do I make it larger when size is already 100? To answer my own question, I can cut into pieces and do several stencils, but that is cumbersome and difficult to align.

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:13:07 GMT

Fortunately I am working on larger object. Cylinder about 35 x 90 mm

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 21:09:23 GMT

New Problem - Using stencil as inset. Got it working good and did a print. Problem is that it appears as an extrusion on the backside. It is not "scooping out " but shoving everything backwards. How do I get stencil inset without extrusion on the back?

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:17:05 GMT

To get a bigger brush you need to scale down your object temporarily:

Do EDIT/Transform> check UniformScaling in its tools option and click on a Size... value and edit the number by setting a decimal separator (e.g. if it was 60 edit it to 6.0). Now your object is scaled to a tenth and the brush size is ten times bigger. (Do NOT use ANALYSIS/UnitsDimension for this as it will scale down the brush sizes as well)

When you do not need that big brush any more do the inverse Transform (6.0 to 60)

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:42:58 GMT

Not sure about what's happening on the backside of your object. Could you post an image?

Surface brushes only affect a circle on the first surface (against VolumeBrushes with Volumetric checked). The only issue I can imagine is that you push the surface too far so it intersects the backside surface or just leaves a very thin region (smaller than the printer's nozzle so the slicer needs to compensate this).

You can control the depth of an imprint (inverted brush via Ctrl modifier key) with the Strength slider.

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Do you use the Stencil for something like a logo you plan to use often or is it for a one time usage only (e.g. a customer name)? If the first is the case: I would consider to design a custom MESHMIX open part. This you can drop on a surface much easier, without such massive remeshing and limits due to the stencil image resolution.

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 16:39:07 GMT

The object is a cylinder with walls about 6 mm thick. I ran three print test at various strength settings. At 15, it shows in the model but there is not enough detail to appear in the print. At 35 the text is visible but not great, and the backside extrusion is starting to appear. photos attached are strength 100. The text looks good but there is backside extrusion. The pictures are not sharp, but you can see what is happening.

This application is more like a logo, it only needs to be done once. If I get it right it will be saved as a master. I probably need to look at Open Part. Can you direct me to tutorials?

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jan 2019 00:47:16 GMT

Again some interesting catch:

You're using a brush size big enough to wrap the circle of the affected area all around a slim object. In this case the stencil pattern pushes two times in the same world's direction: On the front as well as on the back .

You can avoid this rare case by using a face group:

Turn your view to an aspect where you see the front only. Go to SELECT, do some "seed" selection (any selection is o.k.) and do Modify/SelectVisible. Turn this selection to a group by Modify/CreateFaceGroup.

Now in SCULPT>Surface expand its Filters options. Enable RestrictToGroup. This restricts the brush to act only on the faces of the "front group" if the center of the brush is inside this group.

---

To create a MESHMIX text part:

1. Create a text object in some other app (as a freeware solution you might use Blender). You need at least just plain surfaces (of course you might use extruded objects as well). Export from there to .obj and import to MM:

2. SelectALL (Ctrl+A) and run Edit/Extrude:

3. Append a plane object via menu:File/ImportPlane and EDIT/Transform it to be a bit bigger than the text:

4. SelectAll of the plane and run Edit/Extrude with a negative Offset:

5. Activate the extrude plane and with Shift pressed the text as the second object and run a Boolean operation. For a positive text do BooleanUnion for a negative do BooleanDifference (here I do Difference - see settings in the image to get a sharp result):

6. SELECT the extrusion surfaces of the plane and discard them:

7. This results in a pretty heavy mesh- we want to keep a part as low-re as possible. So let's reduce via SelectAll and Edit/Remesh (see settings):

8. Still all selected run ConverTo.../ConvertTo Open Part:

Your MESHMIX part is done!

You'll find it in MESHMIX/MyParts. Drag&drop it to any object and set RotInvCoor in its Drag&Drop Type:

Re: Using Stencil for Text

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 14:56:26 GMT

Used the select and facegroup method. Works well. Follow most of the second method, but there are a few steps that I don't quite understand what they do. Will look at it for future understanding.

Re: Using Stencil for Text

hfcandrew — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 02:35:38 GMT

I found a simply .exe from some people called D3Mesh, they made a free text generating tool called, Meshmixer Typewriter: https://youtu.be/DMMYOgDZZa8