Well, I seem to be at quite a loss. My dual extruder has been getting incrementally better and better with individual calibrations between each filament I own, but I can not figure out how to make intricately detailed dual prints for the life of me without severe, heavy manual intervention. I’d really like to get this printed, but I seem to be able to get no help from Ultimaker, reddit, or any other information source out there. I’m starting to believe that what I’m trying to do has been impossible from the start. At the very least, it’s a process that has been integrated into not a single slicer that I know of.
I have a very handcrafted model that I would like to print. It is specifically designed for dual extrusion. The process that I’ve used to get to this point is a separate by color at face intersections. I have a gray print, and a wood print.
The issue I’m running into is that the slicer does not recognize the model as a manifold mesh, period. Bringing this into Luban, or Cura, results in very similar results. The sliced file is full of holes, empty layers, and it completely unprintable. I would severly like to know if it is possible to import a model made for dual extrusion just how you would a single color mesh. Importing a single color mesh allows you to use a model that has no depth. It is just, the outside, and the inside of the model. no solidification, just a simple skin of a mesh. Doing the same thing with a dual extrusion mesh results in catastrophe. The models I have are exact opposites of each other, yet they yield unusable results.
Infill as support does not work as a universal solution for this design process. A boolean between a solid base and a solidified secondary color results in a mess as well. I’ve tried to solidify the whole thing but then the mesh just becomes hollow and it doesn’t print any infill inside of the shell of a mesh. I’m lost at this point.
I apologize if these thoughts are disorganized. I’ve gone through so many different methods to try and resolve this by myself and with others with no solutions.
Is it possible to import the “Skin” of a model separated into two parts into a slicer without any manual depth creation to said model?
Yes, this is correct I have two non manifold skins. I will have to try the method you’re describing again in the morning, but I did attempt this very method tonight with a more promising result. It resulted in a slice that had approximately 90% of the mesh showing up correctly in Cura. I was still left with many empty lsyers though.
I’m looking for the way that will allow for the most automated method of creation for this. Creating meshes with a detail level like this requires me to subdivide the mesh to approximately 1,000,000+ vertices so the physical geometry can be colorized without looking like very pixelated camo pattern. Then I decimate the mesh to a level where I’m left with the minimum possible face count without looking like a low poly object. After that I select by color, and separate.
It’s at This point, where I’m getting stuck. I’m unable to create a solid manifold mesh easily out of the two complex objects. The face count I’m left with is approximately 300,000-600,000 on each object I belive, I’ll check in the morning. I am unable to solidify the objects with a clean result. It always creates quite the amount of artifacted geometry that would be difficult to clean manually. Perhaps I need to fond a better way to optimize before I solidify. Maybe a solidify in tandem with a remesh would help… illegal attempt again in the mornig.
I really appreciate the response. Any help is of great help. Thanks Maker!
Hmm ok maybe i get it. So your cutter would consist of multiple seperate unconnected meshes? And you need to solidify all those unconnected meshes and then use them as one part as a cutter in a boolean operation. Did I get that right? =)
The issue I’m running into is that solidifying the cutter object using either simple or complex method in blender results in more than a fair share of small artifacts and glitched out geometry. This makes the boolean extremely glitchy and unuseable in that state. It had slipped my mind that remeshing an object is often a quick way to force it to be a clean manifold mesh, thus getting rid of every tiny little non manifold error quickly, as long as it is able to replicate the original object to a detailed extend without any missing islands.
I’ll definitely take you up on that recommendation and look into Netfabb tomorrow. Thanks again for the help on my obscure problem!
Yea ok I get it. That is tricky. If remeshing doesn’t work and if the geometry allows for it, another way to go would be to extrude all the faces of the cutter in the opposite direction from the object that is to be cutted into… and then just fill the holes/creat one big cutting object and continue from there…
Well good luck and hopefully you will solve it! =)
