3D model looks great but in Formlabs 3D Printer Looks Wrong

[printbymagic]

Hi Everyone...

I need some help please... I have designed my first ever attempt in Maya... Probably done a ton wrong but I used the Booleon tool to extrude and I am left with the following (see attached).

In preform it adds diagonals and doesn't have the clear rectangular see thru portions that I see in Maya.

I've tried adding polygons and saving and also saved as both STL and OBJ.

2. The 2nd issue i'm having is I am in CM but when I import into Formlabs it's definitely not in cm!  I think I can just change the decimel point in preform?

Thanks a lot

Anthony

[Anonymous]

Ok...I'm not familiar with "Form labs", however just looking at your geometry there, I'm seeing A LOT of mistakes.  With 3D printing in general, the printer follows the geometry and with your model as it stands now, there's a lot of edges and such that are NOT there...that should be.

Now that said, the model you're trying to create there is actually pretty simple, but I noticed you said "booleans"...booleans are nearly always a SERIOUS pain in the wazzoo!  They seem like a nice short cut and an easy way to do things, but more often than not, they REALLY screw up your geometry....it may look ok "on screen", but they really do leave a mess.  In your case, I'd learn how to use tools like "add edge loop", "cut faces" and "extrude" and such instead to make better geometry...THEN start thinkin' about the stuff like 3D printing and such.

I suspect that wasn't what you wanted to hear, but I hope it helps...we all need to learn to crawl before we learn to run.

[Anonymous]

Since you've already modelled a simple thing the hard way, I would FIRST OF ALL try deleting the history, just in case there is some boolean mess left over, then combining all the objects under "Mesh->Combine" and then I'd do a "Mesh -> Triangulate", because you have a lot of N-sides (faces with more than 4 edges) going on and that might be causing trouble with your 3D printer software. Give it a go, before you try to remodel the whole thing 🙂

Also, some printers are super picky and won't print something correctly unless the model is "watertight" (no intersecting geometry, everything is one solid piece).

Can't help with the units, as I've never used Formlabs before, but I would check the scale of the object.

Good luck 🙂