I’ve just added an AMS to my P1P, it’s all working well and I’ve colourised a few old models in Bambu Studio as tests.
What’s the best way to create new models in multi-colour and export them to STL for printing? My favourite tool is OpenSCAD, which does support colour, but then strips out all the colour information when exporting as STL, which is frustrating.
What software do you all use?
GJC
Personally I use Solidworks, Fusion and Onshape but on all of them there are several different ways to approach designing for multicolor printing.
Did you try to export as 3mf or amf format from OpenSCAD or save as multipart STL for the different colors? The colors as designed may not appear in the slicer when imported but usually it is easy to put colors onto the separate objects within the slicer after the import.
Yes, I tried both AMF and 3MF, but OpenSCAD removes all colour information as soon as the model is rendered, before exporting can happen, so nothing works - I guess it’s rendering to a strict reading of the STL format, or something.
I’ve found the personal version of Fusion 360, so I’ll have a play with the UI and see what I can get out of it. It’d be nice to find a properly portable file format for this stuff, though.
GJC
When I model, I split every different colour into a separate object and then export them as one stl. When I open that stl in Bambu Studio, I right click on it and split into parts. I then colour each part as needed.
question, when you imported the STL file into Bambu Studio did you try to split the object to obtain the separate color objects?
That option is greyed out, so I assume it’s one indivisible object in the STL file once OpenSCAD has finished rendering.
What do you use to do the modelling? I’m pretty sure OpenSCAD can’t do that, although I will have a poke around and see what I can do.
GJC
When I model in fusion I try to have each item I want in a different color as a separate body. At the end I save all as mesh to a single 3mf file. Once opened in Bambu Studio it offers to import it as one assembly but with multiple parts. They can then easily be selected and colored in the objects list.
If you want to hand color / paint there is a big update in the new Bambu Studio by supporting .obj files and making use of the Vettex colors. This way you can also paint in apps like nomad Sculpt, Blender or similar. Just make sure to save there as obj and have vertex colors enabled. Apps like Nomad have it in their export menu.
All useful information, thanks. I had written Fusion off as too expensive, but I see they have a free Personal licence now, so I’ll take another look and see if I can get my head around the user interface.
GJC
I use a CAD program called Shapr3D. I do exactly what Leif3D is describing. In CAD, each colour is modelled as it’s own body and then exported as one .stl
When you open the .stl up in Bambu Studio, you split it into parts and colour each part as needed. I do it this way to avoid colour bleeding. The above picture is the leg from my Sliced Bread model.
If I were to model it as one piece and then use the colouring tool within Bambu Studio to colour the crust, it will look perfectly fine on the outside, but the colouring goes all over the place during the infill.
The leg on the left is modelled as a multi part stl, split and coloured. The leg on the right is a single part stl that has been coloured in Bambu Studio.
On the right, you can see that when it gets to the infill, the colours do their own thing and when you’re dealing with light and dark colours, the dark will show through the light on the finished piece.
Very useful, thanks, I’ll take a look at it.
GJC
I am just learning multi-colored printing and I started doing this with Sketchup models. I have had more success with this than any other method I’ve been told of.
I’d wager a buck the slicer is mixing the supports for structural integrity. I observed on one of my test prints that the material interface is very strong vertically but can gap XY. Not sure if that is a skill issue on my part. Overall not enough to be a problem for me so far – the current model is split into parts optimized for printing vertically to get the PEI plate texture on all the forward surfaces. More complex designs in the future may pose an issue but I will have to see.
I’ve been able to obtain easy to colorize designs in Bambu Studio from OpenSCAD, not sure if it helps in your case but anyway :
I know this is kind of an old post but hoping I can get a response. Your answer to the question above is exactly what I was looking for but Im kind of lost on where to start. I have been playing around in tinkercad and stopped because I couldnt figure out how to colour the object. Anyways, Im going to give this a try but one question I have is when you are designing say the pic of the bread above do you create those objects from scratch? I know tinkercad had shapes you could edit to get whatever shape you wanted. Im going to check out Shapr3d and see if I can get what Im looking for out of it. Any recommendations on tutorials that you thought were helpful? Im going to check out the usuals youtube and google. Maybe see if I can find something on udemy since my work pays for a subscription for me.
Yeah, in Shapr3D you create all of the objects from scratch. You have a sketch tool that you use to draw whatever shape you want and then you extrude a solid object from that drawing.
For some models, I start by creating the basic shape and go from there. In the case of the sliced bread model, I drew and oval and a rectangle, extruded it to 10 mm, and then cut that up into the individual pieces.
I didn’t watch or read any tutorials for Shapr3D, just kinda picked it up and played around with it.
I use that colouring method for most stuff, and for certain things like cards, it’s necessary. I’m working on creating alternative enemies for Gloomhaven right now, and just pulled my first card off the bed. 101mm x 101mm x 0.5mm and 192 individual parts.
That’s the Shapr3D sketch, Bambu Studio preview and printed card.
Thank you! That makes sense to me!
