3D printing a model is often not as simple as just hitting the “print” button. There are several operations you may need to do to your model before hitting that button.
You’ve found or designed a great 3D model that is anxious to appear on your 3D printer. But is it completely ready for printing? There are multiple functions we use in the Lab to prepare our prints beyond mere slicing and support structure generation, and these are the ones we most frequently use:
Sizing: Very frequently 3D models have to be re-sized. It may be that your print has to fit within your printer’s build volume. Perhaps you want to max out the size of the print, or maybe you must slightly increase the size to overcome plastic shrinkage to ensure the printed part fits.
Measurement: In many cases we have to ensure our prints are a very specific size. This happens for various reasons, but really this type of verification (and potential resizing) can only be accomplished with a numerical method of specifying size. Sure, some software lets you resize by stretching an object - but without an ability to precisely enter a specific size numerically, you have little idea of the final size.
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