HI! I'm new on shapeways and stuff so sorry if this has been asked a million times before, but I've scoured the site and i can't find an answer. so, I uploaded this ring design https://www.shapeways.com/model/542770/6b1f0c828e8e825235f73f b13ccc9f51 as an STL file. I modeled it in Pro Engineering... and with the normal rendering it looks fine and smooth, and when it gets converted to an STL file, all these weird angles appear on the edges of it. I know that STL files basically makes up the geometry with a whole bunch of triangles, but when it gets printed are the lines and edges still so harshly defined? and if they are, what can I do in order to fix it. I only model in Pro E... well, it's what I've learned so far in engineering school. kay thanks bye!
You haven't set that model to public, so I can't see it. I assume you're seeing lots of facets on what was meant to be curved surfaces? You need to use more polygons for the mesh so they'll give a closer approximation of the curves. I don't use ProE, so I can't give you the specific steps, but try looking for "advanced options" or the like when exporting. It may also show as max edge length. Common issue though.
You have the model set to private, so I can't see it, but... Many design programs default to "smoothed" rendering which hides the fact that the model is really made up of a bunch of facets. If you can, you should set the program to "faceted" rendering instead. I'm making a major assumption, here but basically, you need to increase the number of triangles on your model. If the model LOOKS bad on the shapeways default render image, then it's basically going to look bad when printed. If you refine the mesh to have smaller triangles, then it'll improve the quality of the print.