Smarter Scale for Large Models

[jflund 0]

I use SketchUp for modeling most of the objects I print, but on annoying "feature" with SketchUp is that it moves, merges, and even throws out vertices, edges, and faces that are extremely small or close together. The generally accepted workaround to this is to design objects at a scale 10, 100, or even 1000 times larger than needed and then scale back down in order to export the STL file for printing.

However, this is a real pain. If you forget to scale the model down, Cura scales it down to fit the build plate, but you may not notice that is what happened if your model nearly fills the build plate. And even when you do remember, its annoying to have to keep scaling up and down. Even worse is to model objects at their actual size because then you often end up with problems that can take hours to repair.

I would suggest a cleaner workaround. Could Cura be modified to allow a scale factor to be specified when an object is extremely large? That way, if I usually model at 100x, I could specify a scale factor of 0.01 for extremely large objects and Cura would do the scaling-down automatically for me when I load the model. The current functionality of scaling to fit the build plate could continue to be used if the model is still too large after applying the specified scale factor. This way, only the second scaling operation (i.e. the "scale-to-fit" operation) would need to generate a warning, and the first scale would seamlessly connect SketchUp with Cura, no warning necessary.

So in summary: Can a new preference be added to the General section and the existing scaling preference be changed as follows:

[x] Initially scale extremely large objects by ___0.01___ to attempt to make them fit the build plate

[x] Scale models that are still too large so that they fit the build plate

where the "0.01" value can be modified by the user (and saved as a preference)?

Just a thought, but why not make life simpler whenever possible?

[Daid 297]

The 15.04 Cura had a feature where it would detect that an object was larger then 10 meter, and then it would scale down by a factor 1000:

https://github.com/daid/LegacyCura/blob/a68a73ae40ba5abce3b6729e9997106b6cc7e7a6/Cura/util/printableObject.py#L79

I'm not sure if this feature is still present in Cura 2.x

Note that I haven't used sketchup after I discovered designspark-mechanical. As it functions quite the same, without exploding your model in your face.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Guest