Ship into 3d model?

[Jack5.exe]

Is there any way to turn a craft you have into a 3d model?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I think there used to be a service before that did it specifically for KSP ships, but idk if they are still around.

I imagine it's possible with any 3-D printer though, it'd just be a matter of exporting the model from like the Unity editor and converting it to Blender or something? (I've no clue, I'm talking out my backside here.)

I'm sure there are services out there who would do it for you, so long as you could them whatever special format of model they need.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Vanamonde]

The company that used to do this has either gone out of business or stopped working with Squad. I do not remember which, but either way, no service does it currently. 

[Jack5.exe]

Just now, Vanamonde said:

The company that used to do this has either gone out of business or stopped working with Squad. I do not remember which, but either way, no service does it currently. 

Yes, eucl3d's... They screwed me over on 2 of my games now :|

[Just Jim]

2 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The company that used to do this has either gone out of business or stopped working with Squad. I do not remember which, but either way, no service does it currently. 

eucl3d... I have one of their models, but I can't find them online anymore. I think the company is gone

[Vanamonde]

Oh, and thread moved to General Discussions, since it's not gameplay. 

[Dfthu]

Yup, its dead sadly https://eucl3d.com/

[Geonovast]

I've used this to get STLs of individual parts.  Not sure if it can do a whole craft, you'll have to read through the thread.

But if the craft isn't overly complex, you could do each individual piece, "build it" in Blender, and export the whole thing as one STL.  Then send the STL to a printing company.

I've also thought about printing out stock pieces after modifying them so they'll snap together.

[Omaha]

I can confirm you can use the Blender plugin to import entire vessels and then export as STL which should be supported by any major 3D Slicer or printing service.  I've printed up instances of my Munar lander, and the command module for my Munar/Minmal missions.  I'd like to print up some more once I dial in a few more settings.

The problem is once you get the craft into into Blender you need to do cleanup to make sure you only print what you want (i.e. no paracute canopies and solar panels are too thin to print) and working with Blender is absolutely awful.  It can also be challenging to orient the vessel on the printing surface such that it will print well.

[Corona688]

6 hours ago, Omaha said:

I can confirm you can use the Blender plugin to import entire vessels and then export as STL which should be supported by any major 3D Slicer or printing service.

That's a good start, though I should note that "file compatible" does not mean "actually works".  It almost certainly just dumps the raw meshes without combining them, which is going to be very hard on a 3d printer and generate a print with lots of weird voids.

[Geonovast]

10 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

It almost certainly just dumps the raw meshes without combining them, which is going to be very hard on a 3d printer and generate a print with lots of weird voids.

I don't think the voids will be as much of a problem as the overlaps.  It will really all come down to the slicer - not the printer.

I've "glued" two models together in Cura by simply putting the models close enough that they're essentially printed as one.  I've also overlapped, which can confuse the slicer, and cause it to actually generate tool paths over where it's already gone.  Netfabb has a free online service that usually fixes problems like this.  But it can also make them worse.

It's always worth a try to at least get it in the slicer and see what happens.  If it looks good in your layer view, you're probably alright.

If you're sending broken STLs to a print service though... you might get some unfriendly emails.

[Corona688]

First, agreed, it's all about the slicer, whether it will understand a model generated in this manner.

Quote

I've "glued" two models together in Cura by simply putting the models close enough that they're essentially printed as one.

You're not really supposed do to that.  Sometimes it can work, sometimes that generates internal defects, sometimes the process breaks down.  It's not reliable.

Quote

Netfabb has a free online service that usually fixes problems like this.  But it can also make them worse.

Netfabb corrects errors - it can't remove flaws.  If there's 5 problematic polygons preventing your model from being a proper manifold, netfabb might fix it.  If your model is 27 intersecting STL's jammed on top of each other, it's not going to be a proper manifold.  Garbage in, garbage out.

The only tool I've seen which does a good job of jamming different meshes together is OpenSCAD, because it does it the mathematically hard way, not the quick and easy way.  It will take a hell of a long time, and eat up gigabytes of memory trying, but if the meshes are valid, will probably work.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Corona688