How to smooth out an STL?
I downloaded this STL from thingiverse and was curious if there is a method to clean up these surfaces so they have more of a curved surface to get rid of the lines? What tool could I use to do this?
MK3s / My IKEA Lack enclosure
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
The left is the above model. The right is a quick half sphere I created and exported from Fusion as is with defaults and it's surface has a much finer texture.
MK3s / My IKEA Lack enclosure
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
You can simulate what happened initially by selecting a low resolution when exporting the STL from Fusion.
It's probably a limit of the tool used to create the model, or an error during export to STL.
To get a higher STL resolution, ask for the design file or recreate the model in Fusion.
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
You can smooth existing models out using something like Blender too. Its not automatic as you would have to select and define the edges you want to keep sharp first but after you have done so you can apply a subdiv surface modifier which will smooth it out and generate lots more mesh.
As adesir says, if you can get the original cad model then it would be much easier. When people export to stl from their design software many people don't know all the options they have available. Even if they do they may be trading smoothness for file size deliberately.
I've also seen the reverse where people have exported something with so much detail that even a resin printer doesnt have the resolution to print it, making the file size pointlessly huge. You have to strike a balance as a designer.
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
Another option I started using recently to edit STL files after photogrammetry processing is Autodesk Meshmixer.
You can select all or sections of the stl and apply smooth or other filters to it, have not used this particukar tool, but was impressed with meshmixer generally.
It is free to download but link is not working from autodesk so you will need to download from a third party site, i think I got it from softpedia IIRC and was clean and worked perfectly.
Tank you very much!
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
The one thing I can guarantee you is it's going to be a pain in the ... to "clean" up such models. I found it usually takes less time to reverse engineer the model in Fusion and export at a higher resolution.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: How to smooth out an STL?
The one thing I can guarantee you is it's going to be a pain in the ... to "clean" up such models. I found it usually takes less time to reverse engineer the model in Fusion and export at a higher resolution.
I'm gonna go this route and just recreate it by tracing in fusion as I need to edit it a bit to work as desired. Thanks all for the replies!
MK3s / My IKEA Lack enclosure