Blender

One of our student staff created add-ons to assist in printing and optimization of part packing.

The first, bpy-pack, allows the user to pack and combine various objects within a defined bounding box, this has been extremely helpful with printers that do not allow overlapping geometries on a print bed. The packed meshes can be joined (cmd + J) and added to a print tray as a single complex object.

The second add-on, Min Bounding box is ideal when a client requests that the print be x long when there is no defined base. Used in conjunction with the packing add-on it optimizes the packing further.

The third add-on, Select Faces by Normal is awesome in that it allows easy face selection for scan data and triangulated meshes. Kiss your floor goodbye in one click.

Bpy-pack Add-on: The 3D Pack add-on provides tools to pack objects into a defined 3-dimensional area in Blender. Users can set the size of the area and the minimum gap between packed objects. Users can also specify whether their objects can be rotated to try to achieve a tighter pack.

Minimize Bounding Box Add-on: automatically minimizes the bounding box volume of selected objects in Blender. It will take several seconds to process each object

Select Faces by Normal Add-on: takes a face or faces on an object that were selected by a user and expands the selection to connected faces whose normal vectors meet a specified criteria. Connected faces who meet the criteria set by the Angle Limit and Group Angle Limit are grouped together.