STL Export Options Dialog

The following dialog appears after you have configured the settings available from the Save As dialog.

Dialog Options:

Options Specific to Solids and Sheet Bodies   

Normal Angle Tolerance- Enter a value limit to control the angle normal spacing between adjacent polygons in the STL export. Default set at 15, reducing value will increase the overall resolution of the STL (which will effect the overall file size of the STL export.)

Surface Facet Tolerance-  Only the corner points of polygons actually lie on the surface; the interior is allowed to separate.  This tolerance options control how closely the polygons conform to the surface of the model. The default is set at 0.01, decreasing the value from 0.0 (which ignores this setting at the 0.0 value) will increase the 'smoothness' so the object will look less faceted on import. File size will increase at lower values then the 0.01 default (as more polygons are produced at lower settings.)

Verify Normals- On export will verify all normals are facing the same direction, if one or more are flipped a Reverse Body Normals dialog will appear to correct any reversed normals.

Output File Format     

You can choose to output the STL in Binary or ASCII format. 

The following settings also are available from the Generate STL File dialog box:

• Digits of Precision - Controls the number of digits to the right of the decimal written for each coordinate in ASCII format output.  A smaller value will result in a smaller output file.

• Transform Vertices Into the Positive Quadrant - This controls whether or not negative coordinate are acceptable in the output STL file.  If your STL file will be used for stereo lithography, this check box should be checked.  The file will then be created with the model shifted into positive coordinate space.  However, some applications use the popular STL format for other purposes.  If negative coordinates are acceptable in the application, you can disable this check box.