I’m being asked by a client to make parts that are ready for multi-color 3d printing. In my quick tests here, it seems that anytime I create a mesh from a part that has per-face colors, those colors don’t show up in the mesh. So what’s the best way to do this? Do I mesh the solid part, then break up the mesh into multiple meshes and then asign colors to each mesh?
Depending on the printer you can either add texture to a mesh and export as *.obj or if you want more sophisticated prints look into *.3mf
Thanks Martin.
I feel like applying textures is going to be tedious, but maybe that’s the only way?
Can you split the part? With some printers the parts can overlap and a value defines the priority for the color in zones where parts overlap.
Can you share a screenshot?
Yeah, I can split the part into a bunch of solids. Sorry I can’t share a screen shot or anything. I’ll try to find out more from the org that’s doing the printing to see what they can use.
I’m unware of any slicer that lets you split a mesh by color. In order to print with muli-materials you need to split the part into various parts then assign a material to each part in your slicer.
Split the solid part.
Export as stl etc.
Assign materials in slicer.
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One way to do multicolor 3D prints is with Stratasys and GrabCAD Print. The downhill skateboard action figure was exported as one *.3mf with 26 overlapping meshes. Some of the meshes had materials assigned in Rhino. The texture on the body including head is from my scan with the Artec Leo.
Mimaki must have a similar software as they can import both *.obj with texture files and *.3mf
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I’m not trying to print in multiple materials, just multiple colors.
What printer are you going to have your object printed on?
So what printer are you using that’s able to print multiple colors with a single material?
I think we are miscommunicating about what a ‘material’ is. I’m saying that the different colors are all, for instance, PLA, so they are all the same material. Multiple materials could mean some areas are PLA and other areas are PVC.
I wish I knew what printer I’m trying to print to. I’ll be hopefully finding that out today.
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Model each color as a separate object in Rhino. Export as .3mf and open in your slicer. In Prusaslicer, for example, the objects are separate and can therefore easily be selected and colored as you can see in this test example:
There is the possibility to color (with primitive paintbrush type selection tools) in Prusaslicer but this way is not precise and can take a long time.