I have been using a Prusa printer for several years. I don’t have MMU2s (their version of AMS) and I have recently found several multi-color models I would like to print from printables.com and I thought it would be as simple as loading those files in Bambu slicer, but that is not the case. Bambu slicer gives a geometry error, and doesn’t correctly interpret the colors. I have since learned I would have to get the .STL files and then “re-paint” them myself. That seems crazy to me. Has anyone found a conversion utility or some sort of other work-around to allow the correct importation of .3mf files? Thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated!
The 3mf-format itself is universal. The slicer-specific presets are what makes it a bit less attractive. On the other hand, why should a preset from PS work in bambu. Or it’s usage may vary based on the machine used between 2 ppl within PS already.
Related to your question: My take on it - also coming from a design point of view - would be that what can be colored differently should be an own object/model. Export individuals as stl or a combined mesh as 3mf (prefered) and than it is ‘easier’ to color those pieces.
Can you provide the link to the specific model you have in mind? Would like to have look into it myself and may provide some help.
Absolutely, and thank you for the offer to review it and I sincerely appreciate any assistance you might be able to offer. I guess from a user perspective, I think a model file should be printer/slicer-agnostic, including “painted” portions. If I send a file to you to print on your inkjet printer, it shouldn’t matter that I have a brother printer and you have an HP. I know that is a gross oversimplification, but I would like to see the industry evolve on a truly universal format that all slicers could interpret. As a simple example, here is the particular model I am referring to:
I dried to load the model in OrcaSlicer and and it seems that a bug in BS/OS hid again - the combined model is not loading the objects properly… I don’t know why this happens, but I saw a similar situation with my precut models after saving and reloading the project already several times.
Anyway, back to your initial question related to coloring: When I load the 3mf I see 5 colors in the filament section (wrong ones, not like in the pic on printables). But when changing the colors to the correct ones I can afterwards change the printing preset as well as the filament preset. So the ‘conversion’ should be not too time consuming.
Still, from an design point of view, would have been great if the designer would have individual files combined in an 3mf already so painting and color setting would be easier
Thank you for investigating. I too received that geometry error, and when I tried to print a monochromatic version of it, the tire that had “treads” had a bad, 8-bit pixelated look to it.
I didn’t quite follow what you said about making adjustments but could you please explain a little more about the ‘conversion’ ? If I want to print this on an X1C, is ‘re-painting’ it the only way to do it? I sure wish someone made a utility that would bridge the gap between these different slicers and make the print files truly interoperable. Asking too much, I am sure. I am quite sure printables.com loves the fact that their designs (other than raw STL) will really only print easily on a Prusa… Does Bambu have an official or unofficial site where the community shares their print designs tailored to their printers?
Currently there is no place dedicated to Bambu Lab printers, but 3mf files are basically just zipped files containing the geometry data similar to a STL, plus some metadata in xml file format.
If you want to have a look yourself, just rename the .3mf file to .zip and open it up.
The geometry should be truely interoperable same as STL, but the meta data, such as colors is not as every slicer thought it a great idea to define it for only themself.
For your error, there are two possible reasons.
a) The geometry is broken and contains holes
b) There is a bug in Bambu Studio that causes a valid geometry to not be importable/sliceable.
There is surely a bug loading multi-object objects (an object consists of several aligned sub.objects) in Bambu and therefor Orca as well.
When I load a precut 3mf in BambuStudio everything is fine (exported from Fusion360). But if I then save this as a project and reload it, it often happens that the objects are not aligned anymore or that part of the geometry is wrong.
Related to 3mf-files itself - I think there is still a long way to go. Consider that a 3mf-project from Bambustudio even silently was not loading in PrusaSlicer 2.5 before. Only with 2.6, it recognize that it is a project file from another slicer and loads geometry only. Heck, even most designer still publish as stl-files and not as an 3mf-file. And Cura for example ignores the ‘names’ of the sub-objects. And all slicer currently ignores the measurement of objects (ie. ‘mm’),
So in the end - yep, for the time beeing seems like repainting is the only way to go.
