tools that allow you to combine shells

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Fluid99, Jan 9, 2012.

  1. Fluid99
    Fluid99 Member
    i am on a mac, running 10.6.8

    when I made my models in silo 2.0 - i used the combine feature. and thought it was all one boolean! however, I didn't realize that there were still 2 shells in my ring. so it got rejected from the shop.

    i tried netfabb - started a repair. ran basic repair - then selected both shells and tried to export the selection as a shape. which worked! but exporting that shape and looking at it - there are still 2 shells.

    also I have looked at Groboto today - which is really awesome! but cannot import my .obj files. you can model all day and export all you want with the trial version - but I would have to recreate my files.

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    first question - does the full version of netfabb actually have functionality that allows you to combine the shells into a unibody / single shell ?

    second question - is it worth the cash? can it do other things?

    third question - has anyone else had this particular problem? how did you solve it?

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    thank you!

     
  2. you don't need to have just one shell... they both just need to be water tight and not overlap polygons...

    it will come as no surprise that i recommend that you dl blender and get the model into there.

    from there it is ok to have separate shells but they both must be ware tight and not share any point or polys in common...

    fr further information i could help by answering more questions.

    c
     
  3. Fluid99
    Fluid99 Member
    thank you!!! I have read about keeping things water tight. i will try blender and see how that does.

     
  4. Fluid99
    Fluid99 Member
    Actually I want to have only one shell, because this is a single piece. It's a ring composed of two items combined. Although they are booleaned, these stayed two shells for some reason will not fully combine. Any suggestions on my primary goal - a tool that will fully combine those items into one shell?
     
  5. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member
    If your uploading it to shapeways, they don't need to be one shell. Shapeways software will automatically join overlapping bodies, so you won't get charged twice for overlapping geometry.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2012
  6. Fluid99
    Fluid99 Member
    thank you! this is very good to hear, Youknowwho4eva !
     
  7. 7777773
    7777773 Member
    I'm interested in this topic as well; I, too am a Mac user that has recently had many models rejected that were previously printable because of multiple shells.
     
  8. Jettuh
    Jettuh Well-Known Member
    If your model gets rejected because of multiple shells this is mainly because your model has loose parts.

    So parts which aren't connected to the main body and so they are floating.
    The production facility spots this and rejects this because they assume that it should be connected to the rest of the model.
     
  9. Fluid99
    Fluid99 Member
    a quick update on this! i received a message from customer service stating that it was indeed OK to print my model even though it had two shells. they overlapped, and as youknowwho4eva pointed out, it was no problem to do this.

    this problem turned out to be _imaginary_ :cool: