interlaced but seperate objects

I've been figuring out some chain maille designs and hit a big stumbling block.

Pieces with less than 300 interlaced, but seperate parts, e.g. this 4 in 1 sheet of 212 rings upload fine, but get up to around the 300 or above mark and the upload fails with this error message;

"error while unifying: 17

We have already tried correcting the issue using our Mesh Medic.

If you have any questions about your product, please visit www.shapeways.com/mydesign under the header "my errors" or have a look at our relevant tutorial or video.
* https://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/fixing-non-manifold-model s
* https://www.shapeways.com/video/fixing-non-manifold-meshes"

I've narrowed the actual number to 300 in one design, but 297 fails in another... the number to trigger the error differs.

Any ideas what the issue is and/or what needs to be done to make it work?

Cheers,
Paul

I think I figured the answer to my own question

Why Mesh Medic fails is not because of the amount of elements, but because of a relationship between the amount of elements and the total number of triangles.

What the ratio is, I've not yet figured out, but I did manage to get a chain maille model successfully uploaded with over 2000 links

European 4 in 1 weave Chain maille dice bag - comes in at 319 elements with a total of 343296 faces (trianlges). Hopefully the upper and bottommost layers of rings will be ok as I had to reduce the number of faces by an 1/8th to get the model accepted by Mesh Medic.

Now that's *very* interesting. I am at present trying to figure out how to turn my dwarf into something that MeshMedic likes. https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=rview&goto=22 006

He has quite a few loose parts - at least 3k, and 95k faces. I'll have to see how much I have to slim him down before MeshMedic can handle it.

I'd be interested to know if you peg down more of a formula.

Daniel, I don't think you're too far off from making your model work, this square ring chainmaille sheet has 3053 elements with a total of 97696 triangles... although there may be another issue involved too, the complexity of the interlaced objects.

I believe your link is not publicly visible, but I understand what you're saying. I can't remember how many "shells" I have - I'll have to check netfabb again.

In any case, I used decimate to reduce *to* 25% and 35% of the original, and both worked. 50% did not. So, I'm going to try backing up a step and selectively reducing the complexity to get the poly count into that magic zone. I'll record the number of "shells" and triangles and we'll see where it goes.

Incidentally, I was not thinking and specified "faces" as reported in Blender, when I should have reported triangles after exporting to STL.

Sorry, i made the model public now :blush:

I got the issue sorted out and chain maille works like a charm, see; It Arrived, Chain Maille Dice Bag

Aaaarrrrgggghhh!!!

OK, this issue is a now 'officially' a right royal PITA!

My Large Chain Maille Dice Bag arrived today... I noticed two of the draw string chain links were fused. I re-checked my 3d model, and sure enough I hadn't centered the pivot point correctly when manouvering the links... so I corrected this and saved the model.

Next, I did my thing and uploaded the model...

Unfortunately, we were not able to process and thus print your product. The error message was:
error while unifying: 17

Uhh... wtf.... it is the exact same model with 19 parts moved x +0.191558, y +0.549985, z -0.065353 millimeters. Still the same 445 shells and still the same 261072 triangles, but the volume has changed by a whopping 0.0006 cc (due to orignally overlapping shells which I fixed)

Come on Shapeways, please resolve this number of shells vs number of triangles issue that Mesh Medic gets upset over.

Cheers

The RRPITA has had some cream applied!

I uploaded the model a second time, with the 'Please fix my model manually' box ticked, and it was 'fixed' using NetFabb (the NetFabb I have showed no errors before I tried uploading)... and... hey presto... one 'fixed' and printable Large Dice Bag

The moral of this saga...
If you get a unifying error 17, check the model in NetFabb and then ask for a manual fix... sorted!

mmm... issue not sorted

My large chain maille dice bag works and is fine.

My Square Maille flat N coaster uploaded fine.

However, a placemat with exactly the same Square Maille flat N design but with 1842 shells failed because? (i don't really have a clue all that was shown in the failure image was a X in the shells box)... it was suggested that it may have failed because the model =2.5mm in one dimension and that i should try uploading with 2.51mm - i did this...

and...

it still failed

This is not a number of shells issue...
this tester model was fine with 3053 shells - https://www.shapeways.com/model/200481/

please can someone (a Shapeways someone would be good) tell me what i need to do to make my "can't be moulded" chain maille designs work - 3d printing is where i see things imagineered bought to life... it may be i got too far outside the box, if so... someone please reel me in a bit

cheers :confused

"shop4stuff" :laughing: you saying i spend too much?
It's stop4stuff

I've received an email saying that IT & the NetFabb ppl are looking into this, so hopefully it will be sorted soon.

Cheers,
Paul