kmanstudios

And still no screenshots.....

Screenshots. Otherwise it is complete guesswork.

It did make a difference. As you can see, I was able to do this quickly. Image file for you to work with and experiment. 3MF file for you to examine. I only have UM3E and S5, so it may not be much help. UM3E_DiggersFile.3mf

Well, I would not send THIS file because it came from a lo-rez image and really does not hold the detail well. So, that being said, do you have a better image? I do not mind a few minutes making something to help, but I would not want to spend a lot of time remastering the image.

Well, sketchup is going to create a whole other set of issues. But one thing at a time. I do it all the time using the steps I quoted above. That is why I cannot figure what the issue could be.

I am not sure what you are doing wrong. When you hold down the CTRL key (or the apple keyboard equivalent) and click on a part, it selects that part and you can move it wherever you need it to go. At this point, screenshots provided by you are the only way to get an idea of this. on this end of things.

There you go...

It is flipped because of a difference in Y up or Z up axis. Have you tried to manually rotate the objects after being merged?

I would start with a 0.2 - 0.4 mm difference in gap between parts.

OK...that is damned weird.....But, I was able to recreate it.

I am going to have to flip the other way on this one. For instance, I have nearly 30 years of modeling experience and could not do this. One aspect of expertise does not lend itself to another. 🤣 Try magnitudes less in accuracy. And if your really wanna get out there and forget about it, try voxels! ACK! That and so much more. But for this pooint specifically, very well put and good job cleaning up what my language made yucky.

You are perfectly able to do so. I was just pointing out that you did not get it even though others had tried to explain it. If you are insulted by that, then what would you have had me say? That you are right, and then prove the concept wrong? And, by the way, all I did was point out a lack of experience. If that bugs you, then get experience. That had been done many times in previous posts. You are the one who took it personally. Maybe it should be pointed out that you had no less than three people showing the differences. Yet it finally took one person to hit the magic button of words you could grasp. Think about that. Do I seem a bit short about it? Yeah, after days of this, and not a single person doing their own investigating to understand the differences, well, yeah, my limited ability to assuage people who refuse to investigate is even more limited. Good for you. And, I mean that in all the best possible ways. It took three different people telling you the same thing before you got the magic words, but do not take offense when someone points that out. Now go and find something that will help you. Only you can do that. Seriously. What works for one does not work for all. At least now YOU understand. Now for people with experience to find the magic words to convince everybody else that has the same level of arguments without independent study or investigation.

Ummm, what was the insult?

I get that. They do not. That is why I do not understand why they just do not get a modeling program and do what they need there. Basically, once people start learning things, and the restrictions of what they thought they wanted, they will just want more until they want a true modeling program. Just shortcut the process and learn to do it now. That is the difference between mesh based and parametric modeling. That is why I urge people to actually go get the free program that does what they need. Not try to shoehorn a half solution into another program. And that is a defining statement about the needs of a program. Very well put. And, it defines more than just the .STL format, but the above mentioned mesh based program. I agree....just focus on solid slicing.

Another person who is not familiar with the two concepts through experience. What Cura does is general, world scaling and nothing else. What is being requested is precise scaling, and to do it right, requires separation of world and object space. In Cura now, try to rotate the object off a 90¯ angle (say 30. 45 60) and then scale... what do you see? Again. When you get around to actually using a modeling program, you would see the difference. If you have to ask, see above.... Then try to use it as a slicer.

That IS modeling. Not slicing. Again, get a program that is made for this and can work in a more efficient way. Crazy stuff like independent world and object spaces. I honestly think that until you have some real experience with what you are asking a program to do, and you will not get it as long as you refuse to actually see the difference in what you are asking i.e. using a modeling program, this will never be a productive conversation. You refuse to accept information from a group of people that have a lot of experience in what you are asking, and them telling you that modeling programs are the way to go with this. so, stick with your insistence if you like. It is not really a good idea. It is far more complicated than you think. And when it is said and done, Cura Devs are working hard to make a solid slicer, not a halfassed hybrid. I believe that a solid slicer should be all they focus on.

I am curious as to why people would want to garbage up a slicer into a hybrid of slicing and modeling? Follow if you will: If this were introduced, it would need a complete reworking of things and it would require learning new things If you get a free modeling program, you have to learn new things If you have to learn new things, why not really learn to do things properly in the various programs that are geared towards a specific end Over-complicating a slicer could and would probably stifle its abilities and retard advancements since resources would be split If all you want to do is print things other people have designed and made, then a slicer is all you need If you want to design things, a modeling program will give you all you need So, why the reluctance to learn a modeling program? They are not all hard to work with. Some are really complex. Some, not so much so. Find the one that suits your level of needs and abilities. One also has to look at the current state of release cycles and see that it is a very difficult task to program just the slicer. Why make it worse? And, Kinda wonder why all slicers do not do other things than slice....maybe the people programing them all see an issue with dirtying up the actual purpose of the software? Also, take a lesson of things from the past. MWord made a lousy page layout program, Illustrator made for a lousy bitmap manipulator, Photoshop made a lousy video editor. The list goes on.

Like so. This took about 15 minutes including tweaking the image a bit. Grey where it was black. White for the red areas and a black background. Higher resolution would have been better.

Convert to a B/W image and just open in Cura. And, yes, get rid of the red. It will register as very close to the black and not give you any relief. Just go to open file, choose the image you modify and play with the settings. I have used it many times. Edit: Oh yeah, the higher the resolution, the better the edges will be.

Thanks. Kinda misread that. Duhhhhh...... 😛

You mean actual file size and not dimensions? Should print as shown in layer view though. That puzzles me.

I do not think it is 8 times larger. Unless you have turned off the automatic scaling, that means it has been scaled down by 7/8ths. This will make the walls impossibly thin. This would probably mean that Cura is trying to compensate for that and therefore will print solid. seems odd that the layer view would show one thing and then print another. I have not seen that before.

If it is printing solid, then it is 'capping' the non-watertight model. I am not sure if this was a feature or not on earlier versions (pre 2.x) you should be able to fix it in an online service. I have no idea where that is though. @gr5 knows such things.

Because it is tech and eventually tech is going to be out to get us? This is just the shot across the bow? 😁 In all seriousness though, if this just started recently, I would go with hardware VS. Software.

I would completely disagree. There are tons of free programs that do this. Basically, I do not feel that Cura should cross into that territory and should just focus on being a very, very robust slicer. Adding modeling program features would just muddy the waters quite a bit.