Slicing STL's w/ Negative Space (2 Intersecting Objects)



  • This only applies to STL's that have merged objects. MC handles everything well with it's own objects.

    Where 2 objects intersect it creates a negative space. The slicer appears to think this is an exterior space instead of an intersecting objects that is actually another interior space.

    I have been manually editing any stl's I have downloaded that have this situation, once I figured out what was happening, merging the two objects creating a single interior space. I have also used MC Primatives when I can, which also solves the issue.

    I can see reasons for having valid negative space.
    Does or will MC have the ability to ignore negative space in the objects without me having to change the STL's?


  • MatterHackers

    Yes, we have a technical solution that we plan to implement in the slicer that will fix this for cases like two cubes overlapped in a single stl file.

    For now you can often fix the problem by 'ungrouping' the loaded stl. This will find all the separate mesh bodies and make them distinct objects, which will then enable the slicer to find the correctly.

    And in case you are interested the tech we will be implementing is called piece-wise winding numbers. It will allow us to find the individual shells of the mesh being sliced as well as keep interior holes. This is assuming the part is mostly ineligible.

    Thanks for the feedback.



  • Great, thank you!

    Most of the situations I have had to modify the STL are like Eyeballs, and places where the two intersect multiple times. By the time I separate the objects I can just as easily merge them. This is especially the case when 1 object intersects itself.

    I love all of the 3d printable items that are out there to download, but some of the real nice looking ones are a pain to print correctly because of this issue, and a few others. 😎


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