High poly bezeled rectangular cube for printing

Question Modeling

I would like to create a model for printing with 0.4 mm resolution that is a hollow, bottomless rectangle with chamfered corners.  (Like the top of an Altoids box.)
steelbox.jpg
I am using a very manual process to get sufficient resolution in the mesh because of the angle of the quads at the corners, and I'm still not getting quads everywhere.

boxmesh.png

Is there a way to create high(er) resolution without getting very long triangles because of the corners?  I've had to manually draw in lines as well as do partial selections to subdivide.

  • Martin Bergwerf replied
    Solution

    HI David,

    I do not know what modeling constraints there are for 3D Printing, but I'd use a simple all Quad solution, maybe something like this:

    Corners_01.png

    Then you can easily increase the 'resolution' with a Subdivision Surface Modifier.

  • Omar Domenech replied

    Totally the contrary, 3D printing is very forgiving with the mesh and triangles, Ngons and all of it, you can have a mess of a model and it doesn't really matter that much. You can watch the 3D printing course and see how Porter does it:

    https://cgcookie.com/courses/make-it-3d-printing-with-blender

  • Martin Bergwerf replied

    Thanks Omar! That's what I would have expected.

    I really should watch that Course, even if I don't do any 3D printing...

  • Omar Domenech replied

    No no, I meant all of that for David. You can watch it too if you want of course.

    • I know😉
  • David Crocker(RavenMenace) replied

    Thanks for the solution.  I was trying something like that but now, after seeing what you've done, I realized that the number of inset loops matters to make the topology work out properly.  

    Part of the problem with subdividing the way that I have been trying is that some regions end up with absurdly high resolution, and other sections have much lower resolution.

    I watched a big chunk of the printing course, and tried to apply bezier curves, but that was much harder than I anticipated.  I don't quite understand how to get a closed curve that isn't janky, and this is a symmetrical application, so I was trying bevels to begin with.

    Thanks for the help!

    • 🤘🏼