AutoCad 2020 Error with Exporting to STL

[BrendanH]

Hello internet,

For a class project, I need to 3D print this labyrinth channel. However, it won't let me select it for exporting. Other solutions I have seen such as SURFSCULPT and CONVTOSURF also do not me select the labyrinth. The only solution I have seen with any merit is to recreate it in Inventor, which I do not have, or have the time to do. I would greatly appreciate any help this forum could offer. It also says that it is not a watertight shape, but I cannot see that being possible given that it is made from an extruded set of interconnected concentric circles.

Labyrint3d.dwg

Edited March 13, 2020 by BrendanH

[Cad64]

The labyrinth is not a solid model. It's a collection of surfaces and regions. In order to 3D print an object, it must have thickness.

 

Right now the labyrinth is a Group, so you will need to run the Explode command to break it apart. Then you will need to run the Convtosurface command on all the Regions to turn them into Surfaces. Then you can run the Thicken command to turn the surfaces into 3D solids and give them a thickness. Then you might want to run the Union command to connect the solids together as one piece. Once you've done all that, you should be able to export to .stl format.

[BrendanH]

It appears that CONVTOSURFACE does not work, given that it says that most of the figure is excluded and cannot be added even to this step. Even Explode does not work on all pieces. Should I also convert all sections to regions before using CONVTOSURFACE?

[Cad64]

Actually, a better approach would be to run the UNGROUP command instead of EXPLODE. But it looks like there's a lot of duplicate overlapping geometry, so you will need to do some cleanup before you can start thickening the surfaces.