Hey guys, I need your help.
I was working with polysurfaces but I decided to use the quadmesh feature to “clean” the mesh. not only it looks good but is way faster and stable for patterns. the problem is I want to print, so I export to STL and my file ends up like this. I tried multiple STL export settings, Any advice?
I used this settings from a tutorial I found but still no luck
I think the problem is that those mesh settings apply to meshing NURBS surface objects, and what you have is already a mesh. So those settings do not apply. The only thing the .stl exporter will do is triangulate the quads before it sends it out.
So I guess you would need to remesh it still finer if the resolution is not good enough. Always look at your object with flat shading on to see what the mesh really looks like without display smoothing.
@Helvetosaur is certainly right, STL export won’t create a finer mesh than what the mesh already is, it’ll just triangulate it.
A alternative approach without putting in much effort might be to run ToSubD on the quad mesh. Then export the new SubD object as an STL. In this scenario those STL mesh settings will be used when the SubD’s underlying NURBS surfaces get meshed for export.
Mesh it first before export. Then export the mesh as stl.
I’d also recommend converting the subD to polysrf before meshing.
And:
‘max angle’ 15
‘min edge length’ 0.001 (inches) – depending on unit of measure.
‘max edge length’ 0
‘minimum quads’ 16
‘refine mesh’ checked
‘simple planes’ checked
sometimes I’ll use 0.0005" or 0.0001" inch resolutions depending on the situation.
Generally ‘pack textures’ I don’t really use or need. but it’s still checked some reason lol.
Sometimes I play around with the angle, and stuff to get different results. But is all depends on what type of mesh you’re after.
You might actually want to mesh the subD instead of converting to polysrf like I recommended, depending on the results you want – you can decimate the subD mesh after to reduce mesh density where the lower curvature areas are too.
Rhino isn’t the best mesher though. So, consider that too.
thank you guys for the detailed instructions, I will try again 
