Hello all…I am trying to export a surface from TBC in some way that will allow me to 3d print it on my 3d printer. I feel that this will be an excellent way to show our client exactly what our earthwork numbers are representing.
I’m having some difficulty finding a format that TBC exports, that is also acceptable in my printing programs. I currently have Blender (which I am by no means a master of) and use Ultimaker Cura for slicing the prints.
If anyone has experience 3d printing a TBC model, I would greatly appreciate any and all help. Thank you in advance.
Export surface in question as a .dxf and import to sketchup(at some point it sure would be rad if sketchup was a part of TBC or at least could be opened from). you have to import from the file tab.
Select surface and do not explode.
Export surface as 3D in stl fromat
Import to your slicer of choice and rescale
print me
Hope that helps
as an aside:
scale is a huge issue with the 3d printing and it can be difficult to scale down and still keep detail in such a fashion that the info is discernible. huge surfaces are going to be untimely in the print process and could appear muddled scaled down. which leaves the other option of piecing together surface sections. I think you would be way ahead on the deliverable with a really nice heat map on a large plan sheet. My two cents.
to go farther, rumor has it that you can now run .trb files through siteworks on a T7 with all codes. I haven’t verified this myself yet but this would allow your field collector to function as a sitevision device. As Pat alludes there are a host of other options that may better reflect or relay scope and scale of your project.
We had hopes to utilize 3d printing to digest some of our more detailed work but due to what we perceive as scaling issues, the reality is that it mostly gets used for bridge date plates.