Split body for 3D printing?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

First time posting to this forum, so apologies if this has been posted before, but I couldn't find an exact match after a quick search.

I have a MakerBot mini v5, which many folks know is a small print area.  I am printing a new robot for class and unfortunately the chassis of the bot is too large for the print volume.  I am attempting to splice the model across one of the faces in a jig-saw pattern for stronger reconstruction.

I tried creating a line and using the slice, however it slices along the incorrect plane, which does not give me the jig saw pattern.  Are there any tutorials out there that showcase how to split a body into multiple parts with a drawn line across the axis you want?  I imported the body from a .stl.  The model can be found here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:597267/#files it is chassis2.stl.

Thank you for any pointers.

[TrippyLighting]

You have to convert the imported .stl mesh into a solid body or Brep. There are a bunch of videos in the "Learning" section and generally on YouTube that should adress how to split a body.

[PhilProcarioJr]

This video shows how to convert the stl to an editable mesh as long as the stl doesn't have over 10,000 faces.

video

This seems to be a big deal in the community......

[Anonymous]

I attempted to convert to a body and I get an error "This body contains too high of a percentage of triangles.  Aborting."

Any specific videos on youtube to look at?  I searched youtube, but I guess I don't have the correct terminology down to find what I'm looking for.  I found one that looked promising, but it was in french.

Perhaps I should try spliting it in something like blender and then prepping it for printing in fusion?

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, I assumed this might become a problem 😉

.stl is about the worst format to exchange data between applications.

What can you do ?

1. Import these as surface models and re-model the simple geometries wut Fusion 360. you'll lern something in the process. Rule # 1 Create a component and acivate the component.

2. Download meshmixer adntry to recude poly count.

3. Use meshmixer to slice the object into smaller meshes, import and assemble in Fusion 360

My first recommendation would be to re-model in Fusion 360!

[PhilProcarioJr]

@TrippyLighting

Can't he just convert the model to an obj with blender then run the obj through instant-meshes to convert it to quads then use the b-rep conversion?

I use Maya to convert from stl to obj but I thought I read somewhere that blender can do this too.

I will be doing this later tonight so I will try to record a video later.

[Anonymous]

What is instant meshes? I just converted it to an obj using Blender, now giving that a shot.

Btw, if anybody works at Fusion, these tools would be super awesome if built in.

[PhilProcarioJr]

https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes

[TrippyLighting]

@PhilProcarioJr the conversion to quads would only help if it gets the polygon count to under 10k faces.

@Anonymous if you know how to run Blender you can import the .stl select the imported mesh, change into edit mode and press ALT-J to convert the triangles into Quads. For these mechanical prismatic objects that may already be enough and hopefully there are not triangles left.

In general tools like instant meshes are more for converting scanned irregular "organic" meshes into quad surfaces. If this works well with these mechanical objects I don;t know.

[TrippyLighting]

You should be able to convert the chassis2.stl directly to a Brep in Fusion 360 as it has less than 6k faces. Still, that thing is so simple' I'd model it in F360.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@TrippyLighting

You can set the amount of vertices to get a polygon count under 10,000. 

I do agree with you that modeling it out in Fusion would be the ideal situation here but sometimes the amount of work involved and time permitted doesn't give us that luxury.

I would try to do the conversion first and if that doesn't give acceptable results, then resort to remodeling it.

The same could have been said for your last rapid prototyping project, but like you said in the other thread some things are easier to do in blender and faster so developing a workflow that fits your needs are really the best option given the fact that Fusion lacks this capability to do this nativly at this time. I still question the direction they are going with the modeling tools at this time. The reason I question it is, sure it will help some people that are doing rapid prototyping but only a little. The real value will come from the day they can convert polygon to native surfaces or solids. Until then it's adding a bandaid to a cut that needs stitches. In Fusion's defense no other CAD app can do this right now either so in reality it's a race to the finish line for all involved. The closest I have seen is NX & Spaceclaim but even they have not hit the nail on the head yet.

Just my 2 cents

[Anonymous]

I tried converting directly to brep, but it asks me to select a face and clicking on the model does not create a selection and therefor options are greyed out. Worst case scenario, I will model it or have one of the artists over here do some magic to it in 3ds max. I sort of just feel like there should be an easy button for this.

[TrippyLighting]

let's start with the basics in trouble shooting. Please show a sreenshot including a completely expanded browser tree.

[Anonymous]

Here is the image of the object and me attempting to convert to BREP.  I am unable to select the body.  Note, I also attempted to convert tris to quads in Blender, it did very few.  I tried to beautify faces, and then convert tris to quads, and that transformed the model to be horrible.

[TrippyLighting]

Did you change anything in the slection filter ? You don't have the mesh icon selected, which is the most right option.

the easiest way to convert this is to right click on the mesh in the browser, which in this case is the object on the very bottom of the browser and right-click on it. The menu that comes up should include "covert to brep".

[Anonymous]

I was attempting to convert to brep (left most) attempting now to convert to right most.  It appears to hold my box up and not respond...

[gautham_kattethota]

Hi,

You might be using the wrong command.  Could you try using the "Mesh to Brep" command that can be found under Modify > Mesh.  See attached image.

As has been pointed out on this thread, if your mesh has less than 10K triangles, this conversion should work fine.

Regards,

Gautham

[TrippyLighting]

Here is a screencast explaining the conversion and the body split.

[Anonymous]

I got an artist from my team to load it into 3ds max and split it up in the jigsaw pattern I need and then re-export as a .stl, which works for printing :).  Super happy I have a rockstar team here.  I do owe her lunch though.

Anybody else trying to build this guy, here are the split files.

http://1drv.ms/1Pe7IMZ

http://1drv.ms/1Pe7KES 

Out of curiosity, why doesn't fusion allow you to model like 3ds max and then have a final export for machining button or something like that?

[Anonymous]

I don't appear to have that "Mesh" button.