Hi, I am having trouble uploading my sketchup model to Shapeways 3D printing. As soon as I upload the file the demo model as displayed on the Shapeways website shows my model with many missing sides.
Please see the photo of what the model looks like and please find the file of my model uploaded to this post.
Any help would be much appreciated.
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Zoom Camera Mount Sketch.skp (294.8 KB)
Shapeways supports several other file formats apart from the common STL, but not all file formats are optimal for 3D printing (and you have no control about how good their file reader is).
- Which file format did you upload, did you try exporting the model from SketchUp to the STL format?
- Is your model a solid in SketchUp? It should be a group or component, and when selected, Entity Info shows “Solid Group” or “Solid Component”. If not, find the mistakes with Solid Inspector.
- Check in the export options that faces are triangulated.
- If your model has too small or narrow faces, you could scale it up in SketchUp so that it exports with all faces. The 3D printing services like Shapeways have a scale setting where you can scale it down again to the desired size.
- You can also upload your model to Sculpteo and analyze it for printability (without ordering a print). They have excellent analysis tools to check whether the model is a solid and whether all parts fulfill the minimum thickness etc.
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Ok. That’s all very good info. I have been advised by DaveR that my model has many problems such as missing faces, reversed sides, hidden faces etc. I will begin by using Solid Inspector. Will go from there.
Justin
