OpenSCAD Problem

I've got a problem with an OpenSCAD design that I can't seem to figure out. I've done a fair amount of Googling for this issue, and I can't find anything. Hopefully someone here can help.

I generated some 3D text in Google Sketchup, then converted it to an STL in MeshLab and imported it to OpenSCAD. It shows up just fine in the OpenSCAD window, but when I try to render it (F6) I get "WARNING: No top level geometry to render" and it disappears until I compile again with F5. Has anyone seen an issue like this? I'm sure it's probably something stupid that I'm doing.

Thanks

show the OpenSCAD code you're using, and attach the STL.

OpenSCAD is very picky about the STL files it wants to import and render. Try running the STL through netfabb studio basic (free), select repair - actions - remove degenerate faces - ok - apply repair - yes. It seems to work most of the time, if not you can play around with the other repair options, or resort to clean up the model in a mesh modeller like Wings 3D.

Of course the "proper" way (as in, what I would do) if you want to use OpenSCAD, would be to make a DXF of the text you want, and use linear_extrude to make it 3D. I wrote up a small tutorial on how to use inkscape to achieve this.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Thanks Nudel. I followed your method for doing it the 'proper' way, and it worked perfectly.

I think the issue may have been the curved surfaces in the font of my original stl file.