Answer to Optional Export Mesh Problem

In this lesson, we will walk through the optional test problem for our guide to meshing course, which starts with a starter file that has this latest part in it. And we have to Export it so that it is lower than 10,000 kilobytes. So, if you are interested in learning how this part was created with this Voronoi lattice, you can visit our Intro to Latticing course. If you’re interested in learning how this custom block was created, you can visit our Intro to Automation course, both linked below this video. But we’ll start with this implicit body, and what we are going to do first is just mesh this.

So, we’ll use the Mesh From a body block. We have the tolerance requested, which was 0.1 millimeters, and we have this part here, so it’s a very fine tolerance. And I can also always go to my block details under display and uncheck that wireframe if you want to see what that finished result is. You could play around with that minimum feature size. You could also choose sharpen or simplify, but this is such a fine tolerance, we don’t really need to do that. It’s not asked to do those. And if we wanted to see what this looked like without that simplify check, I have that exported and let’s see what that is. So, we have that value as our starting mesh, and our starting mesh, you can see, is 134,000 kilobytes roughly. And my final one, as a sneak preview, is under 7,000. So, we only had to have it under 10,000, so this is a little bit smaller than that. So, we do need to simplify in some way to lower that file size. Having it come out as that 3MF is also going to help lower that file size as well.

And you could choose to just simplify right off the bat here, but note that this simplification is going to simplify it by about 90%, so this might introduce some self-intersections on some complex parts. So, a simple part is great to just check that simplify. You have a smaller file size coming out, but another way you can do that is using our Simplify Block and our Remeshing Block. So, that’s what I’ll do. So, we have the starting mesh. The next thing I’ll do is use their Simplify Mesh by Amount. We could also use the Simplify Mesh by Threshold, and you can see I actually have simplified this by 90%. But the nice thing with our amount, a Simplify Mesh by Amount, is you can really control this. So, I recommend starting with 50%, seeing how that is, and then continuing to create that larger amount simplified. So, with certain files, maybe if you have the sharpen, you might notice that you’ll get self-intersecting if you have a higher amount simplified. You maybe can only simplify 30%, so it’s a good kind of trial and error for something like this when you’re really trying to lower the file size while still producing a fine result.

So again, I’ll go into that block details. We can turn off that wireframe. Looks good. This is just now a simplified part, or we put in that starting mesh. I’ll add another Export Mesh so we can see how this has affected our file size, and I’ll label this simplified mesh and save that as a 3MF. So, we can see that this is already a lot smaller, so this is now 15,000 roughly kilobytes. So, it already does a great deal of help. And our last step, using that Remesh Surface, is going to bring us to be below that 10,000. Also, note, there are many ways to go about something in nTop. If you have a process that’s slightly different, that’s okay too. This is just one option for creating that result.

So the last thing I did was this Remesh Surface, and I’m taking my simplified mesh and using that as my surface. Our edge length, I’m going to have as 1 millimeter, so it’s going to create something like this. Our triangle, I also played around a little bit with some of these starting values. So, I added a minimum feature size. Let me show the original. So, I added that minimum feature size of 0.1. I also changed the growth rate to 1.2. So, depending on what you want, two is fine, but if you really want to have that smoothness between the transitions, then you may want to do something like 1.2, especially if you’re creating something like a heat exchanger. So, I just made that 1.2 so we could see what that looks like. And you can see it looks pretty nice with these transitions.

And the last thing I just did was export this. So, maybe you noticed that you have an edge length that is a lot larger. You can have even lower file size. You didn’t do that growth rate. Those are all okay too. This is really just for practice. So, when you’re ready to export maybe a complex part, you know the process that we would go through. So, we have that Export Mesh. And again, for the Remesh Surface, you just want to double-check when going into the block details and into properties. You want to make sure for your final mesh that it is closed, it is Edge manifold oriented, and it is not self-intersecting. So, if you do see that this is self-intersecting, you might want to change around some of these values. Maybe change around that Simplify Mesh by Amount. Maybe it’s too simplified, and you just want to double-check throughout the way that that is the case. So, you can also check with that last one. The Simplify Mesh by Amount and Simplify Mesh by Threshold will give you a warning if it is self-intersecting. The Remesh Surface currently does not, so always double-check with the properties in that mesh, and then we can export this.