For printing a miniature house from actual size 2 story. I have found multiple ways to print 3D from Sketchup that some printers are offering. The idea would be to downsize to about 6inch size, print in MJF and paint afterwords. Some companies have offered to print of OBJ or FBX while I have read that you can go with an STL exporter. Also check the model with solid inspector and make the walls at least 1/8th inch thick. Is this reasonable. What am I missing?
Exporting a .stl from SketchUp after making sure the object(s) are identified as solids is a good option. Depending on what you are modeling and how large you want the print, you may not need to scale the model down before creating the export.
Think about the features and how they will print at the size you are printing. It may make sense to divide up the model into sub-components that can be printed separately. For example it might make sense to print the roof parts separately from the walls so they can lay flat on the build plate and won’t require supports that have to be cleaned up later. Maybe even walls should printed laying down flat so windows and doors don’t need support. All that could also make post-processing and painting easier.
Thanks Dave,
I textured the roof and made the walls 1/8th inch but they get thinner as the house is reduced.
No window glass with a hole in the roof for ventilation through the furnace pipe on the roof, hollow inside, as they will cover some pipes in our front yard.
Created as life size, Ultimately would like to get a 12" X 12" and a 6" X 6 inch.
Have been looking at commercial printers that can print and ship in MJF.
Billy
With just a texture or did you model the shingles? Textures won’t show in the 3D print.
Of course they would would get thinner as you scale the model down. Figure out what the scale factor is from life size to the size you want to print the house. Adjust the thickness of the walls to be suitable for printing. It might be that you need to make the walls thicker than they’d be in real life in order to get a suitable thickness for 3D printing.
Probably a good idea. You can use clear plastic film for the windows if you want them to have “glass”.
Are you planning to put the 3D printed house outside to cover pipes?
Make sure that SketchUp reports every group/component as solid in the model before you think about exporting the .stl file.
As I wrote yesterday, it might be better to break the house down into parts that can be printed flat. They’ll likely make better prints, should be less expensive to print because you won’t need as much in the way of support, and maybe even cheaper to ship because there won’t be so much empty space in the box.
