How to cut 3d Model For Printing
How to cut STL models for 3D printing in Meshmixer
0:00 / 0:00
Quality:
Sharing buttons:
It's obvious that models bigger than the print volume cannot be printed as one piece
Basic cuts along the Z-axis can be done directly and Slic3r
The solution is pretty straightforward
Just specify the height at which the model will be cut
You can also choose to rotate the bottom part upside down
After the cut the newly created model will be automatically placed on the virtual print surface
However, creating complex cuts in Slic3r can be challenging
as it's only possible to define the Z height of the plane cut
This may result in unwanted pieces of the model being cut off
We can demonstrate this problem by trying to cut one of Hulk's hands
Slic3r uses an infinite plane so even though the hand did get successfully cut
So did some other pieces, his leg and the stand
Meshmixer is a great tool for cutting models into smaller pieces
Let's start with a simple plane cut
Select Edit - Plain cut
Hold down the left mouse button to define a plane
Change the cut type to Slice so that no part of the model is discarded and confirm by hitting the Accept button
The model will still appear as one piece select Edit - Separate Shells to create individual models
Another option is to use the Select tool and specify a smaller area of the model to be affected by the cut
When we apply the plane cut everything outside of the selection will stay as one piece
Despite the plane i ntersecting the geometry as you can see in the lower part of Hulk's body
Again, we have to use the Separate Shells function, otherwise the model will still appear as one piece
Let's talk about aligning pins
Adding them will make it a lot easier to glue the finished parts together
First open the Objects browser and hide one part of the model created by the cut
Next up open the Meshmix menu and drag a primitive, a cylinder in our case, to the plane created by the cut
A gizmo with an arrow and a sphere will appear
You can scale the primitive by dragging the arrow and you can reposition it by dragging the sphere
Switch the composition mode to Create New Object
And when you're happy with the placement of the primitive confirm with the Accept button
We're gonna have to duplicate the model two times so that we'll end up with three copies of the primitive
Hide the two new copies in the objects browser
Next, click on Hulk's body and while holding down the Shift key click on the primitive a
A new menu with the boolean difference option will pop up
Untick Auto-Reduce Result, tick Use Intersection Curves and decrease Target Edge Scale
Meshmixer will show live preview of these changes
When you click on Accept the primitive will create a hole in the model
Now we just have to repeat the same process with the other half of the model
The Boolean difference consumes a copy of the primitive everytime we use it
That's why we made the two copies
This way, we'll still end up with one copy of the primitive left for export
Okay, we're done cutting. Now let's just export each of the models as STL
As you can see, because we added the aligning pins
The parts hold together even without any glue
And Hulk...
Smash!
