I have a scan of a model figure from a highly reputable company.
I happened to run meshrepair command just to see if all was ok and got a shock, it says .:-
This is a bad mesh.
Here is what is wrong with this mesh:
Mesh has 5 non manifold edges.
Mesh has 5 duplicate faces.
Skipping face direction check because of positive non manifold edge count.
Important things to consider with this mesh:
Mesh has 7 pairs of faces that intersect each other. Although this does not
necessarily mean that the mesh is bad, it can cause problems if you’re doing mesh boolean operations with it.
General information about this mesh:
Mesh does not have any degenerate faces.
Mesh does not have any extremely short edges.
Mesh does not have any naked edges.
Mesh does not have any disjoint pieces.
Mesh does not have any unused vertices.
ID: 546aee50-8f8e-4b39-a994-9894adc17714 (39)
Object name: Binary STL [Unit:Millimeter] (Written by VGL 4.2.0
Layer name: original scan - scaled 94.58% to 1-32 5ft 9inch
Render Material:
source = from layer
index = -1
Geometry:
Valid mesh.
Closed double precision polygon mesh: 824686 vertices, 1448308 polygons with normals
bounding box: (-10.1687,-8.53704,-7.03663) to (9.03544,2.69461,55.1809)
Geometry UserData:
UserData ID: 17F24E75-21BE-4a7b-9F3D-7F85225247E3
Plug-in: c8cda597-d957-4625-a4b3-a0b510fc30d4
description: ON_Mesh double precision vertices
saved in file: yes
copy count: 26
so I have had to say stop printing, until I find out what this means, from the source, and effect on 3D print.
Just what is going on ?
Can one totally trust this ?
The Source will have to sort it out, its taken a year of waiting to get a scan finished without artefacts. and now as we print, I get this.
I had already run show edges and there were no naked edges, so thought all was good.
Steve
Hi Steve,
It might not matter for the 3dprint unless the printing company says it won’t work. If all looks normal and nice these errors might not matter.
I’ve had scans from top companies and they have had these errors too. I think some of my models in the past had some slight errors but it didn’t matter for 3dprinting.
Contact the printer and see what they say or perhaps open an account at shapeways and upload it, their uploader will tell you if it’s printable.
RM
ref upload to shapeways…
I cannot go uploading files that need a NDA though. or is it that it analyses it, then I can hit the stop button and they never get to see it ? They must NOT receive it, legal requirement etc.
I wouldn’t upload anything to Shapeways that needs to be kept private. You have NO IDEA what happens to the file after it’s uploaded, so you have effectively lost control of it. Just the act of uploading is likely to violate your NDA.
After trimming off a pipe worming its way away from the figure, and capping the hole successfully (wim method)
I then run show edges.
result says:-
Found 67907 edges total; no naked edges, 5 non-manifold edges.
I havent a clue on how to repair these or if they are a concern.
This figure has already been declared ok by the printer manufacturer so I guess such are not to worry about.
is that so normally with 3D printing ?
they are nowhere near my hole capping, they were there beforehand I see.
Ok yea don’t upload if you have an NDA for the model it’s not kosher for you. Glad your fabrication company said printings ok for you.
I haven’t uploaded there in years and have taken my models off their site but I still have an account. I can understand that one wouldn’t want to upload a file if it’s NDA.
But they seem to be pretty reputable the support contacts one pretty quickly about any issues and you can remove ones downloaded models.
I used them to print metal sundials and ceramic moldings when they did ceramics and was thinking of using them again. They also steered me to another company for ceramics when they couldn’t do that anymore.
Have you had a bad experience using them you might care to share? I’d be interested to hear.