From scan to printer

Hi everyone complete newbi here and would please like some advice I have completed a face scan meshed it saved as a stl and sent it to cura to slice but in cura the scan is far to big when I change size the scan is nothing like it should be and cura is unable to slice it to send to printer am I doing something wrong using the wrong program or going about it the wrong way any help would be grateful thanks in advance

There are several free utilities that can simplify your scanned object file while retaining most of the detail. I usually use MeshLab and choose Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation as shown in the attached image.

You can find MeshLab at https://www.meshlab.net/#download

3 Likes

Thank you I will give this a try

MeshLab is a very complicating program with lots and lots of different tools that do similar things, all of which are driven parametrically with input values that are not well documented. I doubt the people writing MeshLab know how to use all the stuff MeshLab can do.

I strongly recommend MeshMixer over MeshLab. It’s much simpler, and it does as good a job of polygon reduction. For a beginner, MeshLab may be too daunting/confusing/frustrating to use.

2 Likes

Thanks for your reply I will try this

MeshLab is good.
You can also used AutoCAD MeshMixer.
It is free and easy to use. Just go to Edit > Transform and set the ratio.

1 Like

Thanks for your reply will give this a try newbie at this but learning all the time

My first scan was of myself. Scanned and meshed, saved as stl. Opened it in Chitubox as I’m using a QIDI printer. I was surprised it came in full size! I scaled it down to a size the printer could handle. I made sure I scaled all axis proportionally then sliced it. It came out perfect.

1 Like

I’d be mildly surprised by that, too (many different programmer-contributors providing functionality under a loose coordinating framework).

But Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation is simple, quick and provides pleasing results. MeshMixer is much simpler but has yet to provide decent results for me.

2 Likes