Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Summary
When 3D modeling is focused on the render for a video or image, "if it looks good"
that's all the criteria the modelers need. However, 3D printing needs to have its
geometry well defined, or it can't bring something from the virtual to the real world.
Fixing bad geometry may not be the most entertaining part of 3D modeling for
everyone. But being able to identify the unnecessary edges or vertices, create faces
to patch holes, and rotate edges when they're in the way, and build a watertight,
manifold model are valuable skills. And if you think about it like a puzzle to solve, it
can be quite satisfying. Being able to take a model that wasn't made for 3D printing
and fixing it, means that entire libraries of ready-made models open up online, so
you don't have to make everything you want to print from scratch.
There are tools such as netfabb (
http://netfabb.com
) and meshlab
(
http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
) that can do a lot of these sorts of things
semi-automatically. They're not complete solutions for every problem, but often can
reduce the amount of work necessary to do mesh correction. But even with these tools
models that look good may not always be printing without a little tweaking by hand.
The next chapter will focus less on modeling or model manipulation. Instead, the
focus will be on learning how the slicer can be manipulated to change the way a
model prints, sort of 3D printing post-processing.
