Greetings! I am new to 3D printing/models, and I was hoping someone would be willing to help me resolve my design/printing issues. I would like to generate a brass or steel model of a molecule; however, the design keeps getting rejected due to weak geometry or poor coordination. I've tried increasing the thickness of the bonds/atoms, but 1. I only know how to do this using trial and error using Blender/ePMV (which I am terrible with), 2. the cost of the model increases significantly with thicker components (I don't know how to hit a sweet spot.. balance between cost and robustness) and 3. I'm not even sure thickening the structure will work. Does anyone have experience in this area that they would be willing to lend to me? I have attached some example files in the event someone is would like to take a gander. I would be very thankful for your time
Does not look so bad. I do not know ePMV, but I would assume you can set bond diameters in its GUI ? You will find the required minimum value on the relevant materials page - best make everything a bit thicker than the value given for an "unsupported wire", as the bonds all have to support the weight of the attaced atoms. VRML is metric by default, so it should be relatively easy to arrive at the desired value (or just scale up the entire x3d file). If true metal turns out to be too expensive, you could try printing in "strong&flexible" nylon and apply metal effect paint.
6921851 would not load initially, so I slapped a "<Transform scale = "1.2 1.2 1.2"> ... </Transform> around everything inside the <Scene>...</Scene>. Resulting 8x8x6 cm (3x3x2 in) model would cost from 75Euros (brass,bronze) upwards in metals, or 18 Euros in strong&flexible plastic. Not sure what your size and price goals are, but at least this size passes the automated checks (except for "sandstone" with its 3mm wire requirement) without any changes to relative bond radii.
Thank you for your input. I forgot to mention in my first post that the models I've tried to buy pass "initial check" and "wall thickness check", but they fail manual checks So far as I can tell the ePMV GUI has two sizing options: ratio (atom:bond ratio) and scale (makes the entire structure thicker and thinner). Unless there is another way to do it, it seems pretty hit or miss!
Well, you could try jmol (if you have pdb, cif or mol data of your molecule), or our DRAWxtl code(if you have cif or shelx format files) - both can export vrml files.