How are STL files like Humpty Dumpty?
Analog eggs are so fragile
Because they’re difficult to put back together again. 1 Taking a digital object and converting into an STL will essentially shatter it into a bunch of triangles. This is great if you’re a 3D printer. It’s not so great if you want to open, edit, modify, scale, create a derivative, or do anything with that digital file other than just print it.
Not infrequently people will upload their designs to Thingiverse just as an STL file. This is great for printing, but not so great for creating derivatives. Other times, people will upload their design files, but not an STL. This is great for creating derivatives, but deprives users of being able to preview a thing and hampers them if they don’t have a program that supports the file format.
I’m a big fan of Google’s Sketchup. I know it’s not open source – but it is free and super easy to use. There are several STL import plugins for Sketchup that all work with varying degrees of success. They tend to miss the finer details on objects. The only reliable way I’ve found to edit an STL file without a loss of data is to import it into Blender, save as a 3DS file, and import it into Sketchup.
One problem with editing an STL file even after it has been converted into a more fungible format is that what was once a simple structure is now a spider web of triangles. Editing a mess of small triangles in Sketchup could get unwieldy pretty quickly. In order to simplify the entire model and potentially reduce the number of triangles involved, consider using the decimate function in Blender or the Polyreduce plugin for Google Sketchup. Either method will provide you with a much simpler digital model for editing and modification.
| Tagged with | blender, design tip, editing an stl, importing an stl, sketchup, stl | 3 comments |
3 Comments so far
Erik de Bruijn
I’ve been advocating the uploading of native format files alongside the STL. I think it can’t be repeated enough.
That said, you may or may note have seen MeshMixer. It’s really an amazing 3D package that works with meshes. It shows that you can still do a lot with them. Google for MeshMixer or see the video’s on Youtube.
Wulf Design
A good number of CAD packages support STEP import/export. so it’s a relatively good format to save and post as well if you want people to easily work with your files. in addition the .stl file could be re-output from the original if there is anything wrong with the .stl, to lower triangle count, or simply make modifications without having to recreate it from scratch.
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[...] where I really wish the designer would also upload their design files. 1 While you can piece a model back together from the STL, you end up with a mess of triangles which is not easy to manipulate. Original design files allow [...]