Hi All,
I am new to the 3D printing world as well as designing something from scratch with Shapr3D.
There are a ton of great design on Thingsverse and I would like to know if I can change some of the dimensions on an existing STL downloaded from Thingsverse? I saw a great design to what I need but it was a little too big to fit what I need. Is there a way to change a specific part of the design instead of scaling everything overall.
Thank you!
Hi, in order to be able to properly edit the design parts I will suggest you download the file in solid body format like STEP, IGES if this is possible on Thingsverse.
You can also try converting the STL design file to STEP format using Freecad before importing into the app.
Here’s how to convert STL files using FreeCad:
https://grabcad.com/tutorials/how-to-convert-stl-to-step-using-freecad
Why cant we do this with Shapr? Would be such a “fontos” and useful tool. Is it even on the feature worklist or roadmap? Somehow strange I have to us Tinkercad to modify STL files instead of Shapr3d
If you take into consideration that Shapr3D is CAD-Program based on a (Para)-SOLID-Kernel, it is way less strange that it is not capable of editing MESH-Files. (Shapr3D is not meant for Sculpting, at least in my oppinion.)
BUT (and this is something I find extraordinary): You can in fact import the STL-File into Shapr, Add geometry with Shapr-features and unite the bodies, or subtract them! That way you can make a mould of a STL-file, if you want.
Lets say you would like to do similar on SolidWorks for instance:
I have to say: I am quiet happy with how Shapr3D handles STL-files - and that it does at all!
Cheers Matt
Hmm STL files are sculpting? I am not using Shapr3d professionally, I design stuff with it I print. Sometimes I find something where the wheel is already invented on Thingiverse for example, just not exactly as I need it. In fact that happens a lot. Now altering that model is not possible. I have to rebuild it with shapr3d which is time consuming and unnecessary as the model already exists.
Shapr3d is such a sophisticated program I can not believe it can not translate an mesh object to its parasolid CAD model if it can export it the other way round.
If its technically possible to tranlate a mesh cube to a rectangle and pullup in Shaper3d, just to mention an easy task, it would be a killer feature.
No - STL-Files are Mesh-Files and editing mesh-files is usually done in sculpting-software, not in (proficient) CAD-software. You asked for editing STL-files and this is not possible in a solid-modeller. One may try to convert the STL into a Solid, but conversion always comes with a price: you loose accuracy in shape, because of the approximation. It is technically possible, but not easy to implement, what makes this feature pretty expensive. The team deciding to work on this feature, means several other features won’t come that the community is waiting for.
So, instead of complaining about this feature not being there, show me your application and I may look into a workaround for you. Like I said before: boolean-operations with STL-files are possible in Shapr!
Best Regard
Matt
Sorry Matt but there is nothing instead of complaining, for me personally it would be THE number one feature. It may be worthless to others, like you, but for me it would be the wow feature. For me Texturing and coloring a model is absolutely useless. But again, that’s just me.
But OK I get you, accuracy loss and hard and long to code are good points.
Let me then ask, what about other formats that are non-mesh? Its really just that wheel reinvent, that remake and redo of an object already existing. Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think Shapr3d lets you import anything much already designed elsewhere?
Here is the correction 
:
STEP is fine as its often passed along STLs but can Shapr do more with it than move, cut append?
Yes! You can direct-edit the geometry as if its made in Shapr, due to its a solid body! Afaik that applies to all of the import-formats except the STL-format.
Just as an adjacent note. I’ve sliced a large .stl file into sections I’d like to make 2D drawings of within Shapr, adding sold bodies into it as registration points. Problem is as mentioned, the .stl is not a solid body and cannot be selected to create a drawing from. Also cannot create a solid and “union” with .stl either. My wish is for shapr to have an .stl to sold conversion. Anyone else have issues with creating 2d drawings and incorporating .stl? I could very well be going about this all wrong. TIA.
Yeah a conversion would be nice. STL is just a dead end now. At least the outer mesh conversion would help a lot.
So I found a model I need in STEP
and another in SLDPRT
With neither of the models I can do anything as whatever Shapr tool I use it tells me that the object would not be valid or self intersecting. I can not even delete a face, extrude whatever.
The complete Shapr toolset is offline with the import which is very frustrating.
Why?
Answering it myself after some Forum digging: It is a sheet body which Shapr cant work with. Cant imagine this cant be solved within Shapr itself converting the sheet to a body when importing.
Hey Peter,
indeed the geometry consists of surface-bodies that are not closed - No Solid, no fun!
Working with 3D-scanned data is a hard task and I checked the data and if i could close the gaps easily for you, so you’ll have a solid Body, but that would require at least some hours of surface-modelling, because of the geometry being already faulty:
Here you see the zebra on the surface and the ZigZag on the edge shows inconsistancies that will make it hard to get to a solid.
I could thicken the surface-bodies by 0,01mm (more wallthickness was not possible) so now you should be able to edit them in Shapr now (in the boundries of the math behind solid-modelling).
Oculus Quest 2 RH manual surface no buttons Refined.shapr (1.3 MB)
Jeah, sure - Shapr would just have to recreate some faces that are not even there, check for the design-intend, solve the inconsistancies,
make some decisions about this and that…
All jokes apart: No CAD-Program in the world can do what you wish for automatically - at least not with a satisfying result.
Shit in = shit out.
HTH
Cheers Matt
OK I get you Matt, nah please don’t spend hours on this, thanks for explaining.
I will get back to draw around a model in several planes and loft them. Its just as exact with these organic shapes.
I’m no expert but thought I’d add today’s experience with this. I came here looking for a way to modify an STL - just needed to enlarge the interior and remove a few bits. The answers here were not what I was hoping for and maybe I’m reading this wrong but I went back to my iPad undaunted. I couldn’t do anything with the original STL but I copied the object and found I could modify that - basically by subtracting the bits I didn’t want and recreating the interior only a little larger and then subtracting that. Would have been nice to have been able to just widen the opening using the sketch feature (still would have had to subtract the bits on the sides) but the object is exactly the way I need it now.
I’m just getting started with Shapr, but from what I can tell the worst part of getting .stl converted to .step using Freecad (as described earlier in the discussion) may be correcting problems for the mesh. I thought it might be worth mentioning the free .stl repair site at FormWare. It has allowed me to automatically fix some imperfect .stl’s enough to make a good conversion to .step using Freecad.
The Freecad I have used differs slightly in the details to get the right working order, but did let me successfully finish the conversion. Right now I’m not able to use enough of the complete Shapr feature set to be able to compare working on an original Shapr design to an imported .step, but it seemed to work well with what I threw at it.
