{"id":1066,"date":"2011-10-21T00:40:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T00:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/archives\/1066-reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl.html"},"modified":"2022-09-22T16:11:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:11:41","slug":"reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl","title":{"rendered":"RepRap 3D Printing WITHOUT the Tyranny of Triangles&#8230; Goodbye STL?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Father of the RepRap and nearly all things DIY 3D printing has managed to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.reprap.org\/2011\/10\/say-goodbye-to-unsightly-stl-triangle.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bypass the&nbsp;tyranny of the triangle<\/a> to 3D print&nbsp;directly from OpenSCAD&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Constructive_solid_geometry\">CSG representation<\/a>&nbsp;without using an STL file in the workflow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- s9ymdb:11143 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"serendipity_image_center\" width=\"320\" height=\"308\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/csg-print.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>What does this mean?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\" style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; \"><p><em>Printing directly from CSG is much more robust than using the flakey<br \/>\n(literally) STL file format.&nbsp; A CSG file can be wrong &#8211; we can all make<br \/>\nmistakes &#8211; but, unlike STL, it always represents an unambiguous solid.<\/em><em><br \/>\n<\/em><em><br \/>\nIt should also be faster (5%)&#8230;&#8230;..&nbsp;<br \/>\nFinally, it should allow us easily to do fancy things like filling<br \/>\nsolids with scalar and vector fields representing build parameters, so<br \/>\nyou can have an object that is flexible (and\/or green) at one end and<br \/>\nrigid (and\/or blue) at the other.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/reprap.org\/wiki\/Mendel_User_Manual:_Host_Software#Using_CSG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RepRap Wiki<\/a> for instructions on how to use this process on your RepRap.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this will actually pave the way to better communicate multiple materials to Objet 3D printers which currently require multiple STL files to create multiple material parts? &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.reprap.org\/2011\/10\/say-goodbye-to-unsightly-stl-triangle.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thank you Adrian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Father of the RepRap and nearly all things DIY 3D printing has managed to bypass the&nbsp;tyranny of the triangle to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":11813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481],"tags":[559,560,479,944],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shapeways","tag-inspiration","tag-software","tag-3-tutorials","tag-whats-hot"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/csg-print.jpg","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>RepRap 3D Printing WITHOUT the Tyranny of Triangles... Goodbye STL? - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Father of the RepRap and nearly all things DIY 3D printing has managed to bypass the&nbsp;tyranny of the triangle to 3D print&nbsp;directly from\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Duann\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Duann\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#\/schema\/person\/848d6ff12be3ccf4dc1dcd672000dc28\"},\"headline\":\"RepRap 3D Printing WITHOUT the Tyranny of Triangles&#8230; Goodbye STL?\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-21T00:40:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-22T20:11:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl\"},\"wordCount\":189,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/csg-print.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"inspiration\",\"software\",\"Tutorials\",\"What's Hot\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Shapeways\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prodshapeblog.wpenginepowered.com\/reprap-3d-printing-without-the-tyranny-of-triangles-goodbye-stl\",\"name\":\"RepRap 3D Printing WITHOUT the Tyranny of Triangles... 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