Reducing Size of STL file to upload to shapeways

Discussion in 'Design and Modeling' started by gibbo1984, Jan 27, 2015.

  1. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    Hi there I am using Netfabb and accutrans and my STL file is too large. How do I compress it to be able to upload it into shapeways. Help please. thanks
     
  2. mygadgetlife
    mygadgetlife Well-Known Member
    Hi,
    Is this related to your Netfabb 'out of memory' thread? If so, sounds like your model has too many polygons (triangles). The limit for Shapeways is 1 million triangles, although I would expect Netfabb to handle much more. What software are you using for model creation?


    Steven
     
  3. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    Is the file STL-binary or STL-Ascii? If you can open it in Netfabb or Meshlab, then you could convert it to the binary format.
     
  4. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    Hi yes I believe I do have too many triangles. How do I reduce them but still keep the same detail? here is a screen shot of my model I am trying to export and upload into shape ways but it is obviously too big.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    Hi yes I think I have exported it as an STL binary file. I selected export part and pressed STL first option on list in Netfabb basic. This is what I am trying to print
     

    Attached Files:

  6. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    The 'out of memory' error is because I am using a Mac but running Windows program also and it appears that netfabb does that error when I am switched to my windows program however I have since downloaded netfabb on my mac and this doesn't happen so something to do with the RAM on the windows program I think. But then again I am all new to this so at least it worked on the Mac better. Just need to get it to a smaller file now to be able to upload it to print with shape ways. ???
     
  7. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    I have also tried Meshlab to reduce triangles etc. but it makes my model very un-detailed and fuzzy like. I followed the instructions on shape ways to reduce triangles etc.
     
  8. mygadgetlife
    mygadgetlife Well-Known Member
    Hi,
    Ok, so your model looks like a pendant - if so it has way too many polygons for any of the materials offered on Shapeways. So even if you could upload and print the model without modification, detail would be lost anyway, simply because the printers can't reproduce that level of detail.

    The meshlab tutorial is exactly what you want to do - the options described help preserve the overall geometry of the model while reducing the poly count. Start with a target of 150,000 polys and work up until the desired detail is retained, bearing in mind the printability I mentioned above.

    Another option is to import the model into Blender, then use the Remesh or Decimate modifiers. Blender can be tough to get into initially but there are plenty of introduction tutorials on YouTube to help.

    Failing that, upload your model to the cloud and share the link here, the support on the forums is pretty good.


     
  9. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    thank you very much appreciate all your help
     
  10. You can also decimate the model in Netfabb easily - Right click > Level of Detail > Choose something like 50%...or more or less depending on the level of detail needed.

    Edit: the above statement is incorrect as pointed out below. I'll leave it here for thread continuity though.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2015
  11. mygadgetlife
    mygadgetlife Well-Known Member
    Good to know, Marcus.

    I almost only use Netfabb to sanity check models - any fixes I need to do are done in the source application.

     
  12. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    @denali3ddesign: are you able to save that change? I don't think the save option (for decimated models) is available in the Basic version.
     
  13. MitchellJetten
    MitchellJetten Shapeways Employee CS Team
    That Level Of Detail is for visibility purpose only (imaging having to fill a tray with 100+ models, millions of polygons), it makes planning a tray easier as it doesn't take as much memory :)

    You can't save it as far as I know.
     
  14. Stony, Mitchell - you are correct! I never realized the decimation was visual only....d'oh!
     
  15. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    ok thank you very much
     
  16. gibbo1984
    gibbo1984 Member
    No it won't let me save it. When I right click on it and chose level of detail and 50% nothing really happens?
     
  17. I was wrong about decimating models in Netfabb Basic. Stony and Mitchell corrected me above. Sorry for the confusion!
     
  18. mckevins
    mckevins Member
    I can only speak to my own work flow, here. I am designing using 123D. The saved STL file is then opened in Net Fabb Basic. The first thing I do is Scale the file to the correct size using the Scale function. (I find the source file comes in really large in both dimensions and file size). This gets reduced down to about 2% of the original imported size during scaling, and you will need to zoom in to even see your object.

    Next, I run the repair function (red plus sign) using the default settings and click yes to have the new part replace out the old part. Typically, when this gets exported as a new overwritten STL file, a 50 MB source file, for example, drops to only 8 MBs.

    Net Fabb is great. Even if I gets a notice, the program will fix the problem with a simple mouse click and then tell that the model is now good to go.

    Hope this helps.

    McKevin
     
  19. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    That is almost certainly the effect of reading an ascii (plaintext) STL and saving it in binary format, as suggested early on in the thread. For mesh decimation, you could give cloudcompare (cloudcompare.net) a try, although that freeware is more about merging and interpreting 3d scan data.
     
  20. Hi everyone
    So this convo describes my exact problem - uploading an stl file which is too big, only I am using rhino 3dm.
    Any tips on how to shrink the file size using rhino?
    Thanks in advance

    Tal
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2015