How to automagically fix a self intersecting model ?

Hello,

I know a designer who wanted to have a try at printing one of his models.

The problem is, the model has a lot of self-intersecting volumes, which would lead to blobs of plastic where the extruder will deposit multiple threads at the same layer (or even to a failed print because of the head dragging into already deposited plastic in the worst case).
The model was not designed with 3D printing as a goal, and redoing it would take many hours.


I think I have read somewhere that some piece of software was able to "wrap" such a buggy model in a skin, keeping only an outside shell, like "casting" it. Just can't remember where
Do any of you know about a software with such a feature ?


Thanks.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Blender has a modifier that will wrap an object in a skin. Its called shrinkwrap and you can find tutorials on how it works on Blendercookie.com

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Thanks Sublime ! I think that's the one I was trying to remember

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

If the model's an aggregated cluster of .stls, Netfabb has the capacity to boolean them into one object, which ought to solve the problem. Freecad and other CAD programs can do the same for other formats.

Quote
murrayd
If the model's an aggregated cluster of .stls, Netfabb has the capacity to boolean them into one object, which ought to solve the problem. Freecad and other CAD programs can do the same for other formats.

Interesting ! Is that available in the free edition (netfabb studo basic) ? If yes, where is that hidden in the UI ?

Thanks for your help.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.