Hey everyone. This is my very first attempt at 3D modeling after taking an introductory Shapeways course through Skill Share. I have a modest design background and downloaded SketchUp to try my hand at this fantastic hobby. The class gave us the template for the iPhone case and I added my design to it (a very simple start!). Would anyone be able to take a look and make sure that the modeling is sound and everything will print well? I figure I will print it in the strong & flexible plastic. Additionally, I only have the SketchUp program and see that in order to upload a file, it must be in a particular format. Would anyone be able to convert my .skp file to a filetype supported by the Shapeways printers? Thank you for your advice and support!
You can export your skp file as a dae file direct from Sketchup. Which will upload direct to Shapeways as a dae file. Before you do that. Get your self copies of https://meshlab.sourceforge.net/ and https://www.netfabb.com/basic.php they are both free. Meshlab will read your skp file and repair it if necessary and export it as a stl file which can be read by Netfabb. Here you can see there are a number of problems. First Goto - part - scale and scale it by 25.4. Click on the 'cross' to repair it. You will see you have 20320 shells and 20320 holes. Click on automatic repair then execute apply repair. You should have a nice green model now, with no exclamation mark. Now you will have to export it. Goto - part - export part as stl, another repair box will appear. Just click on repair till you get the green tick. Upload the new stl file to Shapeways.
Taking a closer look at your model, there are a number of anomalies. Inverted normals. i.e. inside out faces. I think you need to clean up your model in Sketchup by deleting all of the extraneous lines.