How to open STL files? Programs. How to open a file with the extension .stl (using the example of the OpenSCAD program) Program for opening stl files

And get an approximate estimate of the cost of printing the model. For example, printing a processor mount costs only 300 rubles And it only takes one business day.

Format.STL

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How to create an STL file correctly

We need to find a "golden" mean

We will explain to you the basic principle that must be used when creating STL files.

Models with too low or high resolution can cause problems during 3D printing and lead to unexpected results.

Low resolution STL file. Such 3D models will never provide you with the required surface quality, and therefore the printing result will be poor: (Low resolution means that the triangles in the STL file are large and there are few of them. This will lead to “pixelated” or polygonal printing. However, some strive and create amazing 3D models in Low Poly style (more details in our article).

Very high resolution STL file. A file with such a resolution will be “large” in volume, which will not allow it to be opened at the stage of preparation for printing in a slicer, and this extreme level of detail will not allow a 3D printer to print your model. However, if you need a highly detailed result, and especially with small dimensions, then you will need to work a little here :) And then you will be happy...

If you are interested in 3D printing of 3D stl models, you can order 3D printing from us in Moscow with the possibility of delivery throughout Russia and around the world. Fill out the order form and we will calculate the cost of manufacturing your stl model.

The STL extension refers to several different file formats. In today's article we want to talk about them and introduce programs that can open them.

Files with this extension may belong to a format for 3D printing layouts, as well as video subtitles. It goes without saying that both options can be opened for viewing and editing. Another type is the trust list of a security certificate, but the average user is not able to manipulate it in any way. In addition, Adobe Fireworks style files and assets for a number of video games have the STL extension. However, Adobe stopped supporting Fireworks back in 2013, and the user cannot directly edit game resources, so these formats are not relevant.

Method 1: TurboCAD

The first version of the STL format is a layout for stereolithography, better known as 3D printing. We will show the algorithm for opening layouts for 3D printing using TurboCAD as an example.

TurboCAD has a number of disadvantages (high price, no Russian language, inconvenient interface), so if this program does not suit you, you can use our review of drawing programs: most of them also allow you to work with the STL format.

Method 2: EZTitles

The second common version of the STL format is subtitles for video according to the European Broadcasting Union standard. The best program for viewing and editing such files is EZTitles.

This method has several disadvantages. EZTItles is a paid program with large trial version limitations. In addition, this software is distributed exclusively in English.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, most of the existing STL files are of the 3D printing layout type.

Used to store three-dimensional models of objects for use in additive technologies. Information about an object is stored as a list of triangular faces that describe its surface and their normals. An STL file can be text (ASCII) or binary. It got its name from the abbreviation of the term “Stereolithography”, since it was originally used in this 3D printing technology.

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ASCII STL

The ASCII STL file begins with the line:

Solid name

Where name optional line (but if name omitted, there should still be a space after solid). The file continues with an arbitrary number of triangles, described in the following way:

Facet normal n i n j n k outer loop vertex v 1 x v 1 y v 1 z vertex v 2 x v 2 y v 2 z vertex v 3 x v 3 y v 3 z endloop endfacet

where is each n And v- a floating point number in the format: sign, mantissa, "e", sign, exponent, for example "-2.648000e-002". The file ends with the line:

Endsolid name

Binary format

Because an ASCII STL file can be very large, there is a binary version of this format. The file starts with an 80-character header (which is usually ignored, but should not start with "solid" since that's the sequence that starts an ASCII STL file). After the header is a 4-byte unsigned integer indicating the number of triangular faces in this file. After this comes data characterizing each triangle in turn.

Each triangle is described by twelve 32-bit floating point numbers: 3 numbers for the normal and 3 numbers for each of the three vertices for the X/Y/Z coordinates. After that there are 2 bytes of unsigned “short”, which is called “attribute byte count”. In a normal file it should be zero, since most programs do not understand other values.

Floating point numbers are represented as IEEE floating point numbers and are considered little endian, although this is not specified in the documentation.

UINT8 – Header UINT32 – Number of triangles foreach triangle REAL32 – Normal vector REAL32 – Vertex 1 REAL32 – Vertex 2 REAL32 – Vertex 3 UINT16 – Attribute byte count end

Colors in binary STL

There are at least 2 ways to add color information:

VisCAM and SolidView use 2 bytes "attribute byte count" at the end of each triangle description to store 15 bits of RGB color:
- bits 0 to 4 - intensity level for blue (0 to 31)
- bits 10 to 14 - intensity level for red (0 to 31)
  - if bit 15 is 1 then the color is used
  - if bit 15 is 0, then no color is used (for compatibility with standard STL)

Materialize Magics works differently. It uses 80 bytes of header to represent the overall color. Information about the material can also be provided there. The color of each edge is described in the "attribute byte count" as:
- bits 0 to 4 - intensity level for red (0 to 31)
- bits 5 to 9 - intensity level for green (0 to 31)
- bits 10 to 14 - intensity level for blue (0 to 31)
  - if 15 is equal to 0, then this face has its own color
  - if 15 is 1, then the color of the entire object is used

Face Normals

In binary and ASCII versions of the STL, the face normal must be a unit vector directed away from the object. In most programs it can be set to (0,0,0) and the program will automatically calculate the normal based on the order of the triangle's vertices using the right hand rule. Some STL loaders (for example, the STL plugin for Art of Illusion) compare the normals in the file with those calculated according to the right-hand rule and warn if they do not match. Other software may ignore and use only the right-hand rule.

An STL file belongs to the category of computer-aided design; in the CAD file environment it stands for Stereolithography File. This file format is used in the field of stereolithography, which is responsible for processing three-dimensional models and parts. The field of stereolithography includes 3D images of layouts used to form control models for creating a large number of copies.

The STL format is used in the process of file exchange, because such data files belong to the category of CAD files; accordingly, the STL file format itself can be launched using a variety of specialized utilities and software packages related to the computer-aided design environment.

Considering that working with the .stl extension requires certain software, let's consider the IMSI TurboCAD program, which can quickly and comfortably open an STL file. The IMSI TurboCAD Deluxe utility provides the implementation of 2D and volumetric projects, and has in its arsenal useful tools that can edit CAD files, including the STL format. It is worth noting that STL files also belong to the 3D modeling environment.

You can open and edit the STL file format using special utilities within the Windows system, as well as Mac OS and Linux. Other popular programs that can open the contents of an STL file and other CAD files include GOM Inspect or Geomagic Explorer, as well as Dassault Systemes CATIA. Such utilities support the CAD category file extension, they are able to open the .stl file and edit the .stl extension.

STL is one of the most common and popular data presentation formats and can have several main modifications:

STL file resulting from 3D computer-aided design (CAD) generation Albert Consulting Group. Representing a 3D model of stereolithography, this format is effectively used to create a prototype of an object and process it using a 3D printer.

An STL file stores information purely about the surface geometry of a three-dimensional model of an object, not including color design, texture, frame and other fundamental parameters. Such a 3D CAD model can have either a standard binary representation or be stored in ASCII format, which is why the file size can vary significantly.

STL files can also be opened for editing using regular Notepad, if they are created in a standard test format.

The STL extension is unpretentious for data conversion and can be exported/imported into most CAD systems that process 3D models, including SolidWorks, Unigraphics, etc.

STL format (full. Spruce Technologies), which is a subtitle file used to open video content and some authoring programs.

Structurally, STL is a set of comments, commands and records in a specific format: the beginning of the line must have a dollar sign ($), which can then be followed by specific attributes: font style and size, color palette, graphic images, file path, etc. .d, for example:
$FontName = Courier New
$FontSize = 25
//These are the attributes for Layer 1.
00:02:14:24 , 00:03:17:32 , Text

In this case, the STL can be saved as *.txt or *.rtf.

All information that is secondary and not related to the subtitle is delimited by comment symbols “//”.

STL files are a type of game extension. SuperTux is a 2D arcade game that is almost a complete analogue of the legendary Super Mario Bros. This gaming application is unpretentious to the OS platform and can be adapted for Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows. The main format for presenting data is text. Records about the positioning of a unit, the features of a particular game level, time limits, etc. can be stored here. Additionally, it may include media content (musical accompaniment), as well as types of background graphic images.
The STL format refers to vector raster images generated by the Adobe Systems graphics editor. This file contains a library of styles that can be used as Stroke, Effect, and Text object attributes in a Fireworks project. You can also integrate additional styles using the Import Styles command.
STL extension, which is a list of trusted certificates from Microsoft. May be in the form of a list of certificates certified by a trustee. Each item on the list must be signed separately. This format was created specifically for secure connection management and demilitarization of Internet resources and other web applications that require a certain level of protection.
The STL format is the “brainchild” of the South Korean software industry, the result of the generation of the multiplayer network game ROSE Online. Such a file may contain a structured set of data about characters, levels, the position of an individual user unit, music and graphic design.

Programs for opening STL files

Depending on its practical purpose and specific modification, an STL extension can be generated and opened for editing using the following software packages:

Windows and Mac OS use TurboCAD, GOM Inspect, STL Viewer, Geomagic Explorer, Parametric Technology Creo, Dassault Systemes CATIA, KeyCreator, MeshLab, SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer, CloudCompare, Blender, AutoCAD, 3D Studio Max, Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop (STL file - the result of generating a three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) system Albert Consulting Group).
Notebook or another standard text editor (STL format - a subtitle file used to open video content and some authoring programs).
game program SuperTux (STL format - 2D arcade game).
on Windows OS - EZTitles, Avid Media Composer; in Mac OS - ApplFinal Cut Pro X, Apple DVD Studio Pro, Avid Media Composer (STL file - vector raster image, which is the result of generating a graphics editor Adobe Systems).
various Internet and web browsers, including Fireworks, Internet Explorer, etc. (STL extension - a list of trusted certificates from Microsoft).
gaming application ROSE Online (STL file - a structured set of data about characters, levels, position of an individual user unit, music and graphic design).

If an error occurs when opening the STL extension, the reasons may include the following:

the file is damaged or infected;
the file is not associated with the OS registry (an incorrect application for playback was selected or a specific plugin was not installed);
insufficient device or OS resources;
damaged or outdated drivers.

Converting STL to other formats

Translation of STL into other data representation formats should be carried out after establishing its ownership. This extension is one of the most common, but at the same time narrow-profile and designed to solve a certain range of problems (game format, list of certificates, raster graphics).

describe a 3D object in the Albert Consulting Group computer-aided design system;
process subtitles used to open video content and some proprietary programs;
structure the data of a 2D arcade game SuperTux;
represent a vector raster image resulting from the generation of a graphics editor Adobe Systems;
store a list of trusted certificates from Microsoft;
structure game application data ROSE Online.