Stereolitography models preparation module

When the 3D printing technique was still a novelty, I was given a task to write a software module which could automatically fix the errors, commonly occurring in STL files exported by Dassault Systèmes Catia software package. The errors were numerous and usually appeared in places created by some kind of boolean operation between 3D primitives. The models were not “watertight”, meaning they contained holes in surfaces which prevented them from being printed. That was a bug in Catia, giving a lot of headaches to people working in 3D printing companies.

After delivery of the preparation module, I was asked to add a new one, to automatically calculate how much material will be used for printing and estimate the printing time.

Currently, this functionality is available in virtually any tool used for 3D print preparation – even in Cura or Slic3r, used for entry-level 3D printers.

My role in the project: 3D processing expert, C++ developer

Exemplary screenshots showing the problematic parts in 3D models