exporting from Blender with STL
This short tutorial shows how to export a model from Blender to Shapeways by using the STL exporter. This process is described step by step.
preparing your mesh
- Make sure your mesh is watertight and contains no holes.
- Check the normals of your model; they should uniformly point outwards of the model. A quick trick to determine this is to turn off the option 'Double Sided' in the Editing Buttons window. Alternatively, in the same window you can turn on displaying the face normals (under Mesh Tools More). See the screenshot below.
- As a final check, look at the dimensions of your model. The Shapeways printers can handle objects of up to roughly 35x40x40cm. Blender itself does not use units, but the STL importer can interpret 1 unit as 1m, 1 inch or 1mm. I recommend sticking to 1mm.
exporting your model
This is the easy part ;-) Select File > Export > STL
further reading
Check out our tutorials section for more help on the preparation and printing of your objects. I've highlighted a few that I think are good for getting started with Shapeways:- Fixing non-manifold models.If you've uploaded anything to Shapeways, you've undoubtably received a few 'non-manifold' or 'inverted normals' errors. This tutorial will explain what these errors mean, and how you can fix them.
- Video: Finding non-manifold areas in your models. This six-minute video shows how to find and fix non-manifold areas in your mesh.
- Creating hollow objects. Make economic prints by hollowing your designs.
- Materials overview. A detailed overview of our material options, their properties and prices.