ZBrushCentral

3D printing problem: Defining areas that are too fine to print

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’m using ZBrush for jewelry design. I’ve used the “3D Print Exporter” plugin to export the .stl, which I’ve sent out for metal SLS printing. The printer has said that my design can’t be printed because it contains details that are too fine to print - anything below 0.03 inches. Therefore, I have to detect the features that are below 0.03" and increase them to at least this size, or the print will fail, says the rep. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to detect features below a certain size threshold. Is there a way to do this in ZBrush? Is there a way to mask areas that are below a defined size? If not, this would be a very helpful feature for those who are using ZBrush for 3D printing… but I’m hoping that there is a way that I haven’t figured out yet, and that someone will be able to point me in the right direction. [I’ve done a lot of searches, to no avail.]

Thanks,
Shalom

#2

Upload to shapeways and you will have a free wall thickness test.
About the detailing size. There is no tool for measure it yet. It´s more eye measurement. It depends also on the material and printer you use. If you are in the jewellery industry your best choice is using the solidscape machine printing in wax. That is the most accurate printer for jewellery purposes and the detail coul be 0.0005"

Also a mask by thickness feature is requested and other 3Dprinting tools. But there is no reply about them yet. :rolleyes:

Hope this helps

#3

I agree that there should be a feature for this in Zbrush, but it doesn’t have anything like that yet. Blender has some tools and features that can do this, but it’s a bit tricky.

Which 3D print service are you using?

Like Hazard mentioned if you’re doing jewelry than high detailed wax prints are currently the best way to go about it especially with small details. That’s only if you plan on doing a lot of jewelry work or a lot of pieces as the wax needs to be cast for metal. Direct metal 3D printing is fairly limited, at least currently.

If you’re not doing a lot of pieces you could print in a higher detailed plastic print and then optionally coat it in metallic paint. This might have the cheapest look and feel though. It really depends on what you’re trying to achieve for the end result.

#4

At the moment, wax is by far the best at getting most details onto, metal the worst. That may change as different metal combinations are developed, but for now wax rules.

#5

Thanks for your responses, everyone. I agree that “wax” / DLP / SLA rules. That’s what I’ve been using, but I needed to test a private metal SLS service, which is why I ran into their minimum wall thickness issue (this wouldn’t have been an issue with the DLP printer that I’m using). It’s good to know that I’m not missing this minimum wall size detection feature in ZBrush. I sure hope they develop one, as that would be mighty helpful (nudge nudge).