#Tutorial: Break multi-object #STL in individual Objects’ STLs
I am designing the #SCOUTcorexy #3DPrinter and as I design in #DesignSpark Mechanical, I can’t break it up by exporting many STLs (even if that option is available in the Export STL via an Option) because of the way I created the logic of the many many individual bits and pieces that make each piece.
So I will export a single large STL containing all the floating objects just as they are in the CAD file. Now my struggle to turn this in one file per Part. Most slicers recognize the parts and have an option to ungroup/split but that’s it, no further option to save all in it’s own STL.
Tried everything I could imagine until I hit the jackpot by mistake, with #MeshMixer by Autodesk. It’s such a pity a script in openscad doesn’t exist to do this or that no #opensource slicer has this option.
In Meshmixer:
- import STL,
- go to straight to Print (lowest Icon on the Left Ribbon),
- then select the “Separate Shells” button at about the middle of the left stack.
- Once Meshmixer splits the whole file in individual meshes Select the first one then Scroll down to the last one and Shift+Click that one to have all meshes selected and Hit “Repair Selected”.
- Once that is finished Hit “Export”.
You’ll be asked a name for the file (and I was dissapointed that again i’m saving a single file but did it anyway and surpise surprise).
The result of the save is one file named combined.stl and a bunch of files named 0, 1,…
So here is a series of screenshots I took to document the process so others don’t spend days trying to figure it out.
