From scan to printer

Discussions
1

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

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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

Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation
Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation1003×1108 121 KB

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3

Thank you I will give this a try

4

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.

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5

Thanks for your reply I will try this

6

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.

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7

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

8

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.

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9

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.

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