Typical problem areas with a model

There are other problems your model may have, which can also prevent it from being able to be printed by a 3D printer. They are as follows:

• Degenerate geometry: With faces that have no area and edges that have no length, these can often be fixed with the Remove Doubles command

• Distorted geometry: It has faces that are not flat

• Improper thickness: It has walls that are too thin

• Too sharp: It has edges that are too sharp, and will not print correctly, or the object may break during or after printing because it is too thin and fragile

• Too much overhang: It has polygons that do not have proper support and may sag, or break during printing on some printers

We will explore ways to fix these in this chapter and the next.

Fixing distorted polygons

A distorted polygon is one that is not flat. A 3D printer may or may not have a problem with this. Following are the three things you can do with a distorted polygon:

• Flatten it

• Turn it into triangles because triangles are always...