Avoid mistakes that occur when designing 3D files for 3D printing on Fusion 360

At Sculpteo we have developed some great automatic mesh repairing algorithms that you can easily access online through the upload environment. We can proudly say that these methods succeed in almost all cases in repairing common mesh problems, but as they are automated repairs, you might want to have better control on how your mesh topology should be modified following any repairs. Therefore when dealing with isolated and detectable errors, it is better to manually repair these errors yourself on your 3D modelling software as in rhino, the necessary tools are provided.

The reason for manually troubleshooting errors is that no automated algorithm knows your mesh as accurately as you do.

Next, the tools Fusion 360 provides to solve the most common problems with invalid meshes will be discussed in the coming paragraphs.

Fusion 360 specializes in modeling for 3D printing. It is therefore naturally very suitable for handling files in .stl format.

Importing and modifying .stl files is possible and simple, and the software offers various tools to easily repair common errors that your files may present.

Changing the Mesh size

Some files are too large because they have an unnecessarily thin mesh.

Thanks to the Remesh tool, it is possible to modify a pre-existing mesh.

In order to modify the precision and therefore the size of the file:

Change the orientation of a normal

When a normal is not pointing to the right direction, select the face whose normal you want to realign and use the reverse normal tool: 

Suppress an element of the Mesh

In case you want to remove an undesired or disturbing element in your mesh, select this part: 

And use the Erase and Fill Tool:

Your mesh has been successfully reduced.

You can now upload your file on Sculpteo