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Formatting for Shapeways with Maya and Meshlab

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Bring Your 3D Models to the Real World

Shapeways is an excellent site for rapid 3D printing. What does that mean? It means you can upload models you've created in 3D programs and print them out as real objects you can hold in your hands! They use a variety of materials including plastic, vinyl, and even steel. You can even sell your models for other people to have printed at a price mark up of your choice! The site is simple to use and has a thriving community to ask for help when you need it. All you need is a model with good geometry in the right format!

That's where I start seeing problems. Shapeways requires STL, VRML, Collada or X3D file types. I teach students to work with Maya and would like to encourage them to add this technology to their arsenal. Unfortunately, even though you can import a great number of file types, I have yet to export them without some sort of error cropping up as soon as I upload it to Shapeways. Their website suggests MeshLab (a free program) for file conversions, but they don't seem to have much information on using it in conjunction with Maya.

Well, after a bit of trial and error, I've finally come up with a work flow that's given me successful results. This is not a modeling tutorial. I'm assuming you already know how create models with usable geometry and if you don't then you can look up what you need to know on the Shapeways website. Here I intend to focus entirely on formatting your models for 3D printing.

OBJ Export Plug-in

Let's start in Maya

I usually export my models in .obj format since it's widely acceptable by many programs. Thing is, it's not a default option when exporting. Make sure it's available by going to Window>Settings/Preferences>Plug-in Manager. Near the bottom of the list you'll see "objExport.mll". Check "Loaded" and "Auto load" and then "Refresh" and close the window.

Resize Your Model

I have yet to find a way to change the units that Meshlab uses and it only seems to save my stl files in centimeters, but Shapeways only gives me options for meters, inches, and millimeters. That's why I always scale down my model when I'm still in Maya. Set the scale to 0.394 your channel box for X, Y, and Z directions and when you set your units to Inches while uploading later it will come out the same size you made it in Maya.

Export Your Model

Now, with your object selected, all you have to do is go to File and click on the box to the right of Export Selection. This gives you your options. Select OBJexport in the drop down menu and if you scroll down to the bottom of the window you can turn off all the extra stuff you won't need. Export Selection and name your file.

That's it! That's all you need to do with Maya!

Convert to STL

Let's move to MeshLab

Open your OBJ in MeshLab. You don't have to do anything to it here. Just save it as an STL file format. Yeah, it's just that simple.

But What About Color?!

Well, STL is great for most materials available from Shapeways, but what if you want to print something that's got color? Only one material even gives you the option. Sandstone Full Color mixes ink with the adhesive that turns the gypsum based powder into a solid object and allows for vivid colors. But, once again, we've got file formats to deal with. Color objects require VRML or X3D formats. VRML seems to give me larger file sizes than STL and I've yet to get an X3D to work at all, so I tend to use STL for most models and VRML only when I need color.

Combine

If you have multiple objects I would recommend combining them now. I get errors in Meshlab if I export from Maya without combining first and you might as well do this before the next step.

Triangulate

I'm not sure if this is always a requirement, but it seemed to fix the problem. I usually model with quads (four sided faces) but I kept getting errors when I uploaded to Shapeways. I kept getting the error, "Only manifold objects can be printed" even though there was nothing wrong with my geometry that I could find! Well, in an act of pure desperation, I clicked Mesh>Triangulate. I Didn't get that error on my next try, so it seems to have done something.

Resizing Again

Going back to Maya

Shapeways does not require you to enter the units for VRML models, but it seems to get it wrong anyway. It seems to end up 100 times too big! That's why I'm changing the scale from 0.394 to 0.01 and not setting any units in Shapeways.

Using a Color Map

You can assign different colored materials to different faces in Maya, and I understand that works fine, although I don't like to do it that way. I like to assign a color map that I've made in Photoshop. Just make sure to save this image as a PNG and keep it in the same folder that you export your models to later. You should be able to have multiple texture maps so long as the total resolution can't exceed 2048x2048 area, but I have yet to get this to work. I still don't know if I'm missing a setting in Maya or Meshlab. I'll post more if I work it out, but please post something in the comments below if you beat me to it.

Exporting with Color

Go back to the Export Selection's option box. This time make sure Materials is turned on. Export the OBJ and open it up in MeshLab. Yes, it may show up completely black, but as long as there's a message on the bottom that says something like "Texture[ 0]='image.png'" then you're fine. This time save it as VRML file format (.wrl).

Update!

I recently updated to MeshLab 1.3.0 and ever since then the VRML exports have been uploading to Shapeways with their UV's all messed up. I'm using .X3D now and I'm getting much better results. I kept getting errors while exporting the mesh, so I deselected "Color" and "Normal" from both the "Vert" and "Face" columns as seen in the image above. Apart from that, the procedure is the same as with the older version of MeshLab.

Zip It!

Shapeways needs your model and color map uploaded together. You'll need to add the two files (VRML or X3D and PNG) into a ZIP archive. That's why I keep them both in the same file folder, so I don't have to go looking for them. Now you've got everything you need to start working with Shapeways!

Reader Feedback

Was any of this helpful to you? Have you put some great models up on Shapeways you'd like to share with the rest of us? Is there anything I didn't talk about that you really need to know? Have you figured out how to do this better than I have? Go ahead and tell me!

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My Store On Shapeways

If you want to see what kind of things I've made for Shapeways, then check it out here: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/reapermedia

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by

WillLaPuerta

I'm a 3D graphics artist specializing in modeling, UV layout, and color mapping with Maya and Photoshop. When there are enough students I work as a Te... more »

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