Useful free software for 3D Printing - Part 4 - Meshlab

There are a number of excellent software tools for 3D Printing but for the occasional user, smaller business or school they can often be too expensive.

In my previous posts, I covered a File Management/Workflow software called GrabCAD Workbench, Medical Image preparation software called Invesalius, CAD modelling for schools with Tinkercad and now file fixing with Meshlab.

"Meshlab is an open source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes. It provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, texturing and converting meshes. It offers features for processing raw data produced by 3D digitization tools/devices and for preparing models for 3D printing." - Meshlab

There are excellent paid tools out there for this with the Industry Standards being Magics from Materialise and Netfabb from Autodesk, but again for the occasional user, these may seem too expensive, although they are without a doubt exceptional at what they do.

One of the biggest challenges in 3D Printing, is file fixing, many files whether designed in CAD or downloaded from the internet have some challenges with not being watertight - this is a great introduction to watertight files - and these files should always be corrected prior to 3D Printing, many of the slicers available for example GrabCAD Print, does automatic file checking and fixing, but for those that don't Meshlab amongst its many other features has a range of excellent automatic and manual tools for file fixing.

If you regularly find your self stuck with non-manifold files I would recommend Meshlab.