Questions about 3d printing


So I just made my first 3d prints of some shot glasses with straws and I was wondering if there was a way to get rid of the sharp edges and just make it smooth around the outside inside of blender before I export my .stl. Thank you!
Edit: Also smooth shading didn’t work

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Yes, you’re correct. Smooth shading doesn’t work, because it is a mathematical Blender render solution.
While .stl files only work with vertices and straight edges between them.

This means you need to increase the number of vertices in the .stl 3D print file!

Blender has a modifier called subdivision. Which adds more vertices to the model to create more and smaller faces (edges). More subdivisions, more data , smoother 3D prints.

But remember that.stl files don’t know about Blender modifiers. Before exporting to .stl, apply all modifiers!! The best is to save your work in a new file before doing so. Keep your original blender design files.

The number of subdivisions, depends on your printer resolution. How smooth things can be!

Blender has a 3D Print add-on, which can help in prepping a good print model.

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Yes FedPete has the answer.

Making models to print has a totally different attitude to vertices counts than game assets that are the prime direction much tutorials are directed about.

Higher poly the better! If the resolution of the printer is high enough it will print out the facets unless they are smaller in the file. Effectively everything that is not a straight line in particular.

If using an sla printer they can do very good resolution.

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Awesome thanks for the advice I’ll try it out these were just test prints on my regular printer but I have a super high resolution resin printer which is what I plan on doing the final prints on. I’ll let y’all know if it works well!


Thank you for the advice! Was able a to make these cool looking shot glasses with smooth edges this time!

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They worked out better!
What is the odd line down the inside, back?

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That’s just a fault with the printer where it stops and goes the other direction I wish it went all the way around

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