3d Printing from Revit

[Anonymous]

Hello,
I am using Revit 2014 and drew up a residence.  I exported the STL file using the Autodesk STL export from within Revit 2014.  The house prints fine, however, the roofs look very rough.  I contacted MakerBot and they said that the problem was in the STL File.  I have tried printing the roof with two different 3d printers and two different slicing softwares - Cura and Makerware.  I get the same result.  MakerBot support sent the file to cloud.netfabb.com and processed the file. He got the same result.  Are there any known issues with Autodesk's STL exporter?  Does anyone know of a "work around" to get the file to print smoothly?  The STL file is 4.7 mb which is too large to upload on this forum.  However, it is simply a hip roof that is vertical on the back side - that is, it is hipped on 3 sides. 

Thank you,

Robert      

[rnarracci]

Hi Robert,

We've just discovered a similar problem at our office (that we did not experience in RVT2013). We're exporting a mass from Revit 2014 to DWG, then opening that DWG in Rhino and exporting to STL, then pulling the STL into CatalystEX (for printing to a Dimension printer). The printer is producing ripply surfaces that we sometimes do and sometimes don't see in Rhino. I'm investigating now whether its a problem with units (the STL softwares we use typically choke on too many digits.)

[electrotoast_old]

Hey Robert, I know it's been a while since you originally posted this, but have you tried Autodesk Print Studio? Are you still having issues with Revit to 3D Printing?

[rnarracci]

HI Chip,

Thanks. I haven't been doing much printing myself this year but to my knowledge we haven't had any problems. Thanks for the software tip.

rob