[ FILE PREP / ARCHITECTS ]
Getting your model print-ready
A few minutes on your side turns a model we'd have to rebuild and simplify into one we can print exactly as you designed it — roof lines, openings, railings and all.
A model built to render is not a model built to print.
Render models are hollow surfaces, packed with trees and furniture, with no real wall thickness. A printer needs the opposite: a clean, solid, correctly-scaled shape. The steps below get you there — and when we have to fix a broken export instead, fine detail is usually lost in the process.
[ 01 / THE CHECKLIST ]
Eight checks before you export
Run through these before you export. Most bad prints trace back to one of them.
Send an STL or 3MF — 3MF if you can
3MF carries the scale and units with it, so nothing gets guessed. If you can't clean the file yourself, send us the source (.skp / .3dm) and say so — we'll advise.
Delete everything that isn't being printed
Trees, cars, people, furniture, backgrounds and 2D graphics are usually the bulk of the file and none of it prints. Removing them is the single biggest cleanup.
SketchUpSelect entourage → Delete, or move it to a tag and hide it.
RhinoDelete or hide the blocks/layers you're not printing before export.
Make the printable parts solid
Walls, roof and slabs must be closed, watertight volumes — not loose single faces. Open shells are what produce the “non-manifold / open edges” errors in the slicer.
SketchUpGroup it; Entity Info should read “Solid Group”. Run Solid Inspector² (free) to find & fix gaps and internal faces.
RhinoPrintable parts as closed polysurfaces; check with ShowEdges → no naked edges.
Give walls and details real thicknessmost missed
Anything thinner than about 0.8 mm at final print size won't print — railings, window mullions, glazing bars, signage and fins simply vanish or snap. Thicken them, or tell us which are essential so we can.
TipAt 1:100, a real 100 mm mullion is 1 mm on the print — borderline. At 1:200 it's 0.5 mm — gone.
Fix reversed faces
Faces must all point outward. Flipped normals confuse the slicer about what's inside vs outside the solid.
SketchUpSelect all → right-click → Reverse Faces / Orient Faces. (Blue back-faces should be inside only.)
RhinoUnifyMeshNormals, or Dir to check and flip.
Clean the mesh
Duplicate faces, overlapping coplanar faces and stray edges bloat the file and break the export — a model can come out 90%+ junk triangles from this alone.
SketchUpRun CleanUp³ (free): merges coplanar faces, removes duplicates & stray edges, purges unused.
RhinoMesh the object, then Check and RebuildMesh if needed.
Tell us the print size
STL carries no units — a file can arrive as 85 mm or 85 inches. Model at real-world scale, or just tell us the size you want (e.g. “fit a 240 mm base”).
Check it fits the plate — or say “split it”
Our build area is about 250 × 250 mm. Larger models are fine — we print them in sections and join them — but let us know so we can plan the seams.
[ 02 / QUICK REFERENCE ]
The same, tool by tool
SketchUp
- 1Delete / hide all entourage & 2D.
- 2Solid Inspector² → fix until it reads “Solid”.
- 3CleanUp³ → merge coplanar & purge.
- 4Select all → Orient Faces.
- 5File → Export → 3D Model → STL, correct units, “export selection only”.
Rhino
- 1Delete / hide the layers you're not printing.
- 2Parts as closed polysurfaces (ShowEdges → 0 naked).
- 3Mesh the object → Check the result.
- 4UnifyMeshNormals.
- 5Export as STL or 3MF at your target scale.
[ 03 / THE HANDOFF ]
What to send us
- The STL or 3MF, cleaned per the checklist.
- The intended print size — or “scale to fit your plate”.
- Which parts matter most, so we protect that detail first.
- Can't clean it? Send the source file (.skp / .3dm) and tell us — we'll take it from there.
On fine detail: at small scale, delicate features (thin railings, mullions, lettering) may not survive even a perfect file. If any are essential to the piece, flag them — we can thicken them, print larger, or switch to a finer nozzle. Better to decide together up front than to discover it on the plate.