3D Print quality ?

[Roy]

Installed 3D COAT two days ago. Drew this up in solidworks. Saved to STL. Opened in Voxel Sculpting. Did some work. Now how can I save it for best possible 3D Print. Printing with a Formlabs Form 2 SLA printer. If I can get printable quality I'll be sold.

[Roy]

Lets try this. is this the best quality 3D Print i can expect from this software?  I cant buy if i cant get information,

[Typhonart]

Well, best quality depends mostly on the printer you are using and a material you are printing with. With 3dcoat you can go with detail like 0,001mm I believe (at least Zbrush allowed me to print thing in titan with such accuracy, and I believe 3d coat is capable of bringing even more detailed sculpts).

Edited February 22, 2017 by Typhonart

[Roy]

printer will print .025. problem is i cant save .025 in 3d coat. it locks up the software. it locks up the software at .05. i7 with windows 10.

[setz]

I have exported very, very fine detail from 3DCoat sculpted files printed with the Form 1 printer. Even at the scale of your object (which appears to be about 5 inches tall) you should easily be able to export at a resolution far higher than the Form 1 will physically resolve. 

Try this: resample your voxel object up to about 8-10 million polygons.  Convert from voxel to surface mode. Decimate by 75%-85% to reduce file size without affecting resolution much.  Export as obj or stl without any reduction.  Reduction during export can reduce resolution in an undesirable way. This should give you a very highly resolved object for printing.

[Roy]

setz. That is it. Thank you very much for the advice. Works great.

[setz]

Good to hear.  I really like both 3DCoat and the Form 1 they work well together.   I want to get the Form 2 too!

[Robert G]

Good to have found this...

I tried this on a model I'm working on following this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB7Ee7NNy_U

But when I export it from the layers menu as an stl, it does not get recognized bij cinema 4d, while exporting without the decimate trick opens flawlessly in cinema.

I does however open in Meshmixer.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Many thanks, Robert

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Robert G

[AbnRanger]

3 hours ago, Robert G said:

Good to have found this...

I tried this on a model I'm working on following this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB7Ee7NNy_U

But when I export it from the layers menu as an stl, it does not get recognized bij cinema 4d, while exporting without the decimate trick opens flawlessly in cinema.

I does however open in Meshmixer.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Many thanks, Robert

 

In the Sculpt Workspace, make sure the layer is selected, then go to the GEOMETRY Menu > DECIMATE. Now, from the FILE Menu > Export Selected (choose STL as the file format).

[Lisajohny543]

Dear its mostly depend on the printer, if your printer is good your print will be good. 

[Przemas]

the trick is to understand how voxels work (v next to layer name). It is a 3d grid with uniformly sized "cells". So to get the finest quality you need to crank up voxel density prior to voxelizing your mesh object.

When it voxel mode fill all air pocket and other things that can cause issues, then turn your model into mesh again (you should get "s" next to layer name) then decimate to reasonable value. There's no single "correct" value - all depends on model scale and what your machine (3d printer / mill etc) can handle. You should aim to get as few polygons as possible - but enough to retain all the features you need.

For me voxels are one of the main reasons I have 3D Coat in my arsenal. It allows me to fix files that would be a major pita otherwise.

[Archester]

Great thread. Following Setz instructions I was finally capable of exporting a decent quality model without losing the original resolution shown in the software.

Thank you guys, you made my day