Blender Mesh Fixing | 3D Printing Tool Box Explained

finally my masterpiece is complete let me check  it okay mistakes were made um i have no idea what   this means let's go find out hold on what the  documentation is to do so let's jump straight   into deciphering the 3d print toolbox which is a  fantastic little add-on for 3d printing and just   general mesh analysis i'm going to start from the  top down i'm going to jump around a little bit as   well but you'll see why there will be reasons  why so first one statistics click it check   volume volume brilliant do note though that this  is centimeters cubed and you can see right there   that is the sort of accuracy problem that blender  has which is six decimal points of accuracy and   considering that i'm working within millimeter  workspace here you can see i am at 0.001   so that's actually very accurate we go over to  this one we can check the volume as well it's   about half because there's a great big hole in  it we'll check the area the area is going to be   more of this one because of the hole compared  to this one right here now very quickly i want   to jump to the transform because here there's a  scale to volume and bounds now we'll come to the   volume in a moment first let's go over this bounds  basically this lets you sort of scale it up to   fit within a maximum length great example is this  cone now i have a 3d printer let's say that the 3d   printer is 150 millimeters so i will say 150 click  ok and that scaled this up to be 150 on the z so   the highest length it goes up so if i made this  really short and stout like this now when i go and   do the exact same thing and go bound and i'll set  this to 150 well the longest length is now the x   and y not the z so that's how the bounds work now  let's jump to this volume oh this is a real shame   and i know what's going on when we check this  volume this is 1000 centimeters cubed well in   millimeters cubed that is 1 million correct well  let's do that exactly scale to volume keep note   right here millimeters cubed not centimeters and  this is only 100 000 and this is the maximum value   that i can put in so if i tried to set this and  give this another zero for instance and we click   okay it's going to scale this down because we  have reached the maximum right there i'm going   to put this in as a bug report just so that people  know that that is the limit there now this might   not be a problem for some that aren't working with  millimeter precision like i have set up right here   but it's just something to be aware of that there  is a limit to this transform and scaling to volume   jumping straight to the meaty bit of the add-on  it's the checks but i'm going to jump over all   these checks and just go check all because this is  the way that 99% of us use it we're going to click   check all and we get all these lovely results  in other words this is how you've done it wrong   in every way possible but don't worry about  it we're going to go through each one of these   individually starting with the non-manifold  edge in case you don't know what that means   basically means that somewhere on this model there  is a great big hole because this is not a closed   shape and this one's pretty obvious because when  we click on this right here the non-manifold edges   it's going to point out where the problem is and  it's pretty obvious this top bit needs a face so   let's press f we fill that face up and this will  fix that non-manifold edge so we'll go back here   check all you see no manifold edges at zero let's  jump to the next one checking this one we can see   that we have bad contig edges what on earth is  contig. well this means a bad continuous edges   and if you aren't used to the idea of what  exactly a continuous edge means don't worry   many people don't this basically just means that  your normals are flipped somewhere when we click   this bad contact edges it's going to select  all of the edges where there's a normal change   so this one is the outside normal inside  normal and you can see that edge right there   it's flipped so there's a problem there so the  quick fix is just select those faces or select   everything so i'll press a select it all press  shift n do a flip of the normals and now when i go   back out we will do a nice little check and  you'll see our bad contig. edges are sorted out   and they're at zero this next one is pretty simple  intersecting faces two well when we take a quick   look it looks pretty obvious what's going on it's  intersecting itself in some way so we go to edit   we'll select this vertex here push that vertex  back out so it's no longer intersecting itself   we might have a sharp corner there though so  let's just pull that down over to here and now   when we do a quick check you'll see we have zero  intersecting faces now here's another example for   intersecting faces when we check this one here  it's going to say we have 12 intersecting faces   it's pretty obvious what's going on this one here  is just being pulled right the way along so that   is not really being designed correctly so let's  just quickly edit that we're going to go into our   face selection select this loop here we will  delete all of these faces i will also delete   these two faces right here i'll then select this  face go into edge selection select this edge loop   press ctrl e and we will bridge the edge loops  and we'll do the same bridging on the other side   to make sure that this is completely manifold and  we go bridge edge loops and now when we do a quick   check of this mesh you will see our intersecting  faces have turned to zero checking this one we   have zero faces now zero faces is where things  start to get a little bit more complicated because   they're not blatantly obvious so when we go  into our edit mode here and we select zero   faces we're like okay but what exactly is wrong  here there's i don't see anything wrong here   well what this means is that there's faces that  are so close together that they're equaling an   area of zero so if we pull this out you can  see i've obviously done an extrusion here   but didn't move it at all now the quickest fix  for this one really is select everything press m   and merge by distance that's going to remove four  vertices because it's gone and merge things i'll   do another check and you'll see our zero faces  have been fixed now along the same lines we have   zero edges again it's one of these that doesn't  show inherently obviously when we click on here   you'll see that nothing even shows up what i like  to do at this point is basically click it because   i know it's selected press g move around so i  really understand okay here is the problem what   exactly is going on here well i know what's really  going on what's happening here is that there's   edges that equal a length of basically less than  zero they're actually equaling less than 0.0001   because when i move this there they are some  edges with no faces so it's also non-manifold   but that's basically the problem that's  going on here very similar to the face one   except to do with just the edges so i'm gonna  again i'll select everything merge by distance   it's going to remove a whole bunch of vertices  i will check it and we'll be back to zero just   a quick one if you're enjoying this video and  you're finding it useful i really appreciate it   if you give it like to spread the word and help  more makers then we have non-flat faces what on   earth is a non-flat face well it basically means  that this gigantic face right here is not flat   and it's pretty obvious you can see there's sort  of like a fake edge a bend right here in the face   but that is not really great especially for us  when we're coming from 3d printing because stls   work in triangles and randomly it could put the  fake edge this way or it could put the fake edge   this way so we really need to define our mesh and  be sure that hey if i want this mesh to have an   edge right along there i've got to add that and by  the way using j will add an edge along a face like   that okay fantastic that's how you should go about  and fix this manually what about automatically   well automatically speaking you basically just  need to select this and where it says clean up you   can go distort click this and it's distorted it  this way see randomly it went and put it this way   instead of that way the way that it was showing up  so just be aware of that okay now that we've done   that let's just have a little quick word of  warning here non-flat faces by default it's   set to a 45 degrees so if i did a quick check  of this one non-flat faces are set to zero   but we know very much so that that's a non  flat face problem right there well if you're   wanting to stay as precise as possible to  your mesh especially for precision modeling   set this down to point one or even lower it's up  to you really but point one you should be fine   and now when we do a check you'll see ah we have a  non-flat face here now manually what the way that   i would go about doing it is i'm going to go here  press j and this way it's now defined so when i   do another quick check you'll see non flat faces  set to zero it's no need to do any cleanup and   that's it set one that's pretty straightforward is  thin faces as you can see we have a very thin face   up at the top of here when we check it we can  have two thin faces going into edit mode and we   select it it's gonna select the two thin faces now  this is set up right here where it says thickness   i have this set to 0.86 you might be wondering  why well on prusa slicer right here it says   for a layer height of 0.2 two lines is usually  the thickness of 0.86 so right there for fdm   that is as thin as you can really go sort  of reliably i guess i don't know but from   here if we move that and just make it a little  bit thicker now when we do our check we will   see that we no longer have our thin face problem  now what about for resin printing though like you   guys can really go really thin so let's check on  here our thickness your resin 3d printers can go   0.05 so that's 50 microns so that will remove the  thin face problem here because this is a face that   you would actually be able to print and that there  is thin faces moving along we come to sharp edges   now sharp edges are a little bit interesting in  the sense that what exactly is this 160 degree   that's associated with a sharp edge well if i take  this into edit mode and i rotate this it means   from being vertical all the way down to here as  long as that is more than 160 degree change so   if that line was continuing on and folding back on  itself it's more than 160 that's going to come as   a sharp edge now sharp edges are interesting so  right this minute is pointing out this one here   and the best way for me to show you why i should  go to a slicer so here we have that exact same   model we're going to slice it up you see it's no  longer gone up to that line that's got to do with   sort of being a thin face as well but it's also  just too sharp in sense of being 3d printable   it's also the same with this one over here but  not as noticeable but it's so thin you can see   that that's turned into just one line over here  and we know that that's just not going to come out   great when we try to 3d print it so that there is  what sharp edges are the easiest way to fix them   is just move them so that they're no longer that  much of a sharp edge but it's very much dependent   on your printer and if it can do these sharp  edges or not and lastly the one that we know   the best is overhanging faces as you can see  we have three very obvious overhanging faces   hold on three yes three so let's check so we  got three one two and three yes it's not going   to count this one of course because that's just  where your build plate is going to be so keep that   in mind no matter what blender has no idea where  your build plate is so it's just telling you hey   all of these are past your overhang threshold  of 45 degrees so again to change this it's very   simple we're just going to change our entire model  here we'll grab all of these go g go z and bring   that down and now when we do a quick check we  will see that our overhanging faces have gone down   but hold on why on earth is it saying thin faces  there is not a single thin face on this big block   right here and here is a little caveat to all  of this there is a little bug right this minute   that if you go past 2 000 millimeters from the  center you start to get these phantom thin faces   so thin face right here i will now move this  block inside of the 2 000 millimeter radius   we'll do the exact same check right now thin  faces zero so just be aware if you're making   anything that's bigger than two meters and you're  working in millimeter precision you're gonna have   thin face problems that just do not exist due  to this little bug again i am going to go ahead   and report this bug and i will let you know down  in the top comment if it gets fixed or not or   what's going on with that now the very last thing  to cover is this whole idea of clean up and export   now when it comes to clean up to be honest i  don't really use the cleanup because i find that   most the time it's the exact same things that  we check anyway it's going to check your normals   it's going to press an m and merge everything  together and it's going to do a distortion   so sometimes it can really destroy  your model during this whole distortion   and make manifold honestly manually is the way to  go and the last thing to do is exporting exporting   super simple you basically just select what it  is you want to export where you want to export it   tell it to apply the scales you should be applying  the scales anyway decide which file format you   want and hit export it's that simple personally  i still like going to file export stl because i   get a lot more little settings and changes that  i can fiddle about with right here than this   right there and there you have it that's the 3d  print toolbox completely explained with the bugs   and all now of course the most obvious solution  to all of this is know your problems and model   without putting those problems in but no matter  what you're gonna put those problems in in one   way or another for me it's the boolean modifier  no matter what that always gives me problems with   zero edges and zero faces now that you know all of  these though you can definitely keep them in mind   while you're modeling so whenever you're doing  a big change or you've just done something that   was really difficult just quickly check your model  that's another tip don't wait till the end check   as you go along because sometimes it's a very  quick fix while you're going along oh there there   was a zero face let me just quickly fix that up  right away because those little things can quickly   compound down the line to become much bigger pain  in the necks to sort out later on a huge thank you   to my patrons you guys are absolutely awesome and  it's actually the reason why i've made this video   thanks to one of your suggestions and if you're  enjoying what i'm making here you think i'm worthy   of your support i would love to see you there too  don't forget that we have a discord and that's   linked down in the description thank you for  watching keep making and let the quest continue

Channel: Maker Tales

Views: 1,251

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d printer, 3d printed, tutorial, tips, 3d modeling, volume, area, solid, intersections, degenerate, distorted, thickness, sharp edge, overhang, check all, make manifold, information, 3d printing tab, holes, non manifold edges, faces, polygons, make solid, deformed, non flat, 3d print tool, Explained, How to use, Mesh Fixing, Blender, 2.9, 3.0, Bad Contig., normals, mesh analysis, finding problems in mesh, toolbox, tool box, edges, thin faces, precision, broken, blender for 3d printing

Id: 0rgrLWFUjlk

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/dnew]

I just found it really helpful.